Sagebrush & Solar

Heads up: this long update. Mostly because I’ve been slacking at writing.

Last week, we got news that my dad had been called last minute to California for his real job. He was supposed to be gone until December 8th. Imagine my confusion and surprise when I looked outside on Thanksgiving and saw my dad tossing ice melt; that’s right, he came back early! We were very thankful for this. Keith was already stressed about the membrane project and temperature issues and may have thought my dad was some type of mirage.

Keith and I started waterproof membrane project on Thanksgiving (before my dad got back)…more on that project in this post. Anyway, the membrane and sealant is now complete.

We hit a bit of a road bump after Thanksgiving: Keith has been sick for the past week. He won’t love this, but I’m going to give him a shoutout anyway. Keith works five 10+ hour swing shifts in a stressful job. He comes home, sleeps for a couple of hours (literally 4-5), and either does dad duty while I’m at work, runs errands or goes out to the build site. If he’s at home, he’s watching Luke so I can get a few things done. My point is: he’s been working incredibly hard and it’s no surprise that his body is demanding a break.

With Keith out of the game, my dad gets the B-team to assist him — aka me. He’s much more patient with me than he was 25 years ago, an attribute I am more thankful for as an adult. He trusts me with the weird jobs you’d trust a child with (breaking ice with a breaker bar, using a pickax to break up clay/dirt, using a leaf blower to dry moist concrete/membrane to apply sealant) and I’m alright with that.

With the membrane and sealant out of the way, next up: drains.

Drains are important because they keep water away from the house and crawlspace. You know what’s expensive? Pipes. When I thought about building a house, I assumed my hard earned money would be going toward lovely things like a farmhouse sink, herringbone tile and warm toned Pergo flooring. But no, all of our cash is flowing directly into infrastructure. How boring is that?

Anyway, I digress. My dad is working on installing a French drain around the house. This type of drain redirects the water away from the house and is piped downhill. Fun fact: they didn’t originate in France, they’re actually just named after some dude from Massachusetts named Henry French.

In order to lay the drain pipe, we had to lay backfill down to the top of the footer to make the surface even.

In addition to that, several trenches needed to be dug. The French drain trench from one side, and the septic pipes leading to the septic tank from another. Both of these drain downhill so we don’t have to fight gravity and install a pump. There’s no shortage of hill where we’re at, so we might as we make the best of it.

Our neighbor, Gordon, brought his backhoe (named Bubbles) over and helped move a ton of dirt. We’re very grateful for his time, expertise and equipment.

In addition to the trenches, Gordon was also able to get some backfill done. Backfill is a fancy term for putting the dirt we took out of the hole back into the hole. This is important so we a) don’t have a hole and b) it’s necessary for bracing the exterior walls prior to the final pour. It also means we don’t have to walk on balance beams to enter the house.

Despite the temperatures and odds against us, an astounding amount of work has been done over the last week. We can’t say it enough, but we are so grateful for the hard work, time and energy my dad has fueled into this place, especially this past week with the challenges our own family has gone/is going through.