PROGRESS

Why in the world …Oh!!!

 

We were talking to our builder, Nick, yesterday and he said something interesting.  He said the first time any of the subcontractors work on our house their first reaction is "Why in the world would anyone build a house down here?" (The road to our house is narrow, steep, gravel, and muddy, with puddles when it rains.)  But when they get to where the house is their reaction changes to "Oh, it is really very _____ down here!"  Fill in the blank with pretty, nice, beautiful, peaceful, lovely etc.

 

I have had the second part of the conversation with virtually all the guys who have been working on the house as I have been checking progress in the last few weeks.  In fact, one variation I had with Boomer who drives the bull dozer.

 

"You know it is really very nice down here," Boomer said.

 

"I know, I am just going to sit in the hot tub and look at my waterfall," I replied enthusiastically, "what could be better than that?"  They had just delivered the hot tub which will go on our enclosed patio and I certainly do love hot tubs.

 

"Well," replied Boomer thoughtfully, "I can think of one thing." (!!)

 

I did not pursue the conversation further.

 

Dan went down with me and is really getting into the spirit of the thing.  We spent a lot of time discussing what furniture we would take and what we could discard.  We considered which pictures and pieces of our glass collection would fit in, and what we should do with everything else.  (We are losing about 500 sq. ft. ~ 47 sq. m. and lots of walls.  dt)  Unfortunately, Dan felt he could fit a lot of the items I thought we could discard into his office. He plans to put 1 large desk, 2 typing tables, one TV on a stand, 2 or 3 bookcases, one recliner, one  cabinet with glass doors, and of course a desk chair and a computer in a small bedroom.  (It has a nice closet.  dt)   I was put in mind of Dr. Who's expanding telephone booth.  (The TARDIS – dt)  Time will tell how it will all work out.

 

Yesterday we went to pick out the different flooring.  The girl who "helped" us would not tell us or did not know the prices on anything, so we went around picking out what we liked.  Unfortunately, we have very good taste!!  I (or we) will have to go back again now and try to figure out what we can actually afford.  Sigh!!  There are an incredible amount of different tiles, carpets, and wood flooring options.  Nick, the builder, promised either he would go with us or would find a better sales person for us.

 

The wiring is about done and the plumbing lines are laid.  The outside doors are in and the garage floor is poured.  As soon as they put up the dry wall in the next couple of weeks it will really look like a house on the inside.  Boomer will come back next week to work on the cistern and the leach bed.  He will also spread the topsoil  (many tons)  so I can start planting things!   YIPPEE!!

 

 

We have added just a few pictures; the inclement weather kept us inside.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157601749258506/

 

dan and rebecca

 

 

http://www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

 

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Way Out West

A WEDDING in IDAHO

 

The new house is coming along very nicely.  More about that below.

 

We recently returned from Idaho where we attended the wedding of Rita's (one of Rebecca's sisters) daughter Kate.  We can report that there are still cowboys – and cowgirls – out west.  Rita lives in Boise, Kate in Mountain Home.  The wedding was in the meadow near Kate's place and the reception (no pictures here) was in Bruneau, a speck of a town further south of Mountain Home.  We had a wonderful time and greatly appreciate the friendly hospitality.  Jeremy and Kate make a wonderful couple and we wish them a long, fruitful life together.

 

Here are some random pictures surrounding the event:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157602053565632/

 

We also had a nice time visiting Boise.  The annual Art Festival took place while we were there and we also visited the World Center for Birds of Prey  ( http://www.peregrinefund.org/default.asp ) among other sights.  Just a few miscellaneous pictures:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157602063643691/

 

And if you are a bit interested in cowboy culture and cattle, here are some sites about Jeremy and Kate:

 

http://www.american-journal.org/issue8/featurepage8.html

 

http://www.brokencirclecattle.com/index.php

 

 

Mrs. T provides excellent commentary on our construction:

 

Well building this house is a lot more involved than I ever imagined. I guess it would be easier if we were not so picky. The latest thing is the shower. We never take baths so I decided that I wanted a nice big shower like we have in Mexico. The thing is in Mexico Tile is cheap and so is labor. Also in Mexico Estella comes in twice a week to clean. (I hate cleaning between the tiles when it gets moldy!!) While doing research I found a thing called a shower cabin which would wash you at all different levels, dry you, and massage you while you watched TV or listened to you favorite music. I was really disappointed that it didn't brush your teeth and gargle for you but there you are. Forgoing this marvel which cost half as much as our whole house we are going with an, off the shelf (if it is a very tall shelf) acrylic one piece shower the size of a bath tub. It has a little seat which will be convenient when we get a little older and more decrepit, or I may use it now on those days when I find a shower just too exhausting.

The next thing is trying to reach accord on the colors to paint all the rooms. I asked my husband what color he wanted his office and he finally said puce. I asked him what color that was and he refused to answer (I don't think he actually knows but I am not absolutely certain). I looked it up and it is a deep reddish purple! While looking up puce I noticed that the definition of puddle duck is dabbler something I always wanted to know. Aren't dictionaries wonderful!

For our bedroom I thought purple might be nice but Dan wasn't buying it even when I told him purple was a passionate color. I mentioned aqua but that ship didn't float either. He said we better stick with blue and I suppose he is right. One complicating factor is that while I am picking out colors I am trying to keep in mind window treatments.

Yes I said window treatments, how high falutin' is that. But for the first time in our married life we do not need curtains for privacy. There is no other house within sight of ours. In our bedroom we will probably want blinds so that we can darken the room but other than that I think I will just drape fabric across the top of the windows and let it hang down the sides. I bought some really lovely kimono fabric that I think I will use in our bedroom.

The next question is what color to paint my office but I am still undecided. I think a trip to Andersons to look in their wallpaper books is in order.

On Sunday a friend of our son is coming to stand on top of our house and see where we should put the satellite dish. As I understand it he has a thingy he points at the sky to see where the signal is best. We have never had either cable or a satellite before (Actually we have cable at the condo – dt)so I hope Dan is not overwhelmed by all the possibilities.

 

We have added a few more photos in New House 3:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157601749258506/

 

We hope you look at the links, they have some interesting material.  Our Flickr pictures may be edited in the future.

 

Dan and Rebecca

 

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

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UNDER ROOF

MOVING ALONG

 

Just a quick update as the house construction completes the next phase. (In fact, the bank inspector is about to go for a visit so the contractor/builder can receive his next draw on the loan.).  As you read this the roof may be on.  The exterior framing is done; the roof joists have arrived, and are being manhandled into place – no crane here.  They built the walls one by one on site and then nailed an entire wall into place.  You can see from the pictures, that the frame structure for the interior is also substantially completed.  The hot tub was delivered and sits on the future patio (which will be essentially a year-round room); it was much easier to build around the hot tub rather than trying to squeeze it through a hole.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157601749258506/

 

Fortunately the weather has been cooperative.  Except for one day, it has rained very little at the construction site even though other parts of Ohio were being inundated with torrential rains causing significant flooding.  The temperatures have subsided a bit and it has been generally comfortable.  However, the mosquitoes and other bugs have been prominent. 

 

We have been told that the place should be ready no later than Thanksgiving.  We hope that will be enough time to move before departure to our condo.  Ah, so much to pack.

 

Dan and Rebecca

 

http://www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

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HOUSE UPDATE

REAL BUILDING BEGINS

 

Actual construction on the new house has commenced.  More about that below.  First a bit of a digression for a weather report.

 

It has been HOT.  A heat wave of two weeks with temperatures in the 90s (mid 30s C).  And this is not 'dry' heat, the humidity puts the heat index several degrees higher.  Record temperatures have been set in some cities. Our friends in Manitoba may have sent their heat wave our direction.  We are even hotter than Bucerias.  Our friends in Taiwan would feel right at home.  And of course weather affects construction.

 

In our last installment the rain delayed work.  Since then, rain has been almost unknown and the weather, despite the heat, has cooperated.  More land has been cleared.  More importantly, the footers have been poured.  Probably as you read this the block is up.  Because we will not have a basement, construction will be a bit easier.  We did not want a basement – one of the purposes of our one-floor ranch design is to eliminate stairs.  In any case, a basement may have required blasting as the land is essentially bedrock.

 

The new pictures really should provide you a good idea of the area.  We mentioned the highwall behind the house previously.  We will have an enclosed patio, with hot tub, that will look that direction.  In the future Mrs. T hopes to have a soothing water fall coming over that wall.  In the pictures you will note a peak over another highwall as well.  Our house will be situated on a flat space between the two, much like being on a middle step.

 

We anticipate the frame will be up in the next couple of weeks and then building can proceed in earnest.  Because our builder/contractor does not have any other significant projects, we hope construction can continue without interruption, although probably not at warp speed.  Keep your fingers crossed.

 

Check out the pictures from time to time; we sometimes add more before email updates.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157601277094372/

 

Best wishes to all.  Let us know how you are doing.

 

 

Dan and Rebecca

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

 

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SOME HISTORY

 

INITIAL WORK IS UNDERWAY

 

Some tree clearing has begun for our house project.  The biggest bit is for the leachbed.  Unfortunately work has been delayed slightly because we received some much needed rain.  Looks like another dry spell is coming, so work should resume this week – some more clearing and digging, including the removal of some major sized boulders.  A few additional pictures are on Flickr at the New House1 set.

 

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157600418511906/

 

(Note on Flickr:  You may have already discovered that if you move your mouse over the pictures in a slideshow an "I" appears like a watermark.  If you click on the I, the description of the pictures will show.)

 

The picture of the giant mantis is from Inniswoods Gardens in Westerville.  Those of you in the area should visit there.  http://www.metroparks.net/  Perhaps we will install some large sculptures in the future.

 

And now a bit of history.  Rebecca has written this short account about our land.

 

 

My grandfather was John William Sellers.  He came from England when he was a boy.  But already he had been a miner. In the mine they started as pit boys when boys were only seven.  The lads were small enough to crawl through low tunnels where men could not, and drag out coal.  Of course John Willie's father was a miner, and his uncles.  There was no hope for them in the dark mines of England.  The tunnels flooded, the tunnels collapsed.  And men died, for very little pay.  The Sellers family was among the organizers.  They tried to start a union in the mines.  But someone gave the owners names.  The family was blacklisted and there was no work at all if your name was Sellers.   How they found the price of passage I do not know.  The men came first and when they had saved sent back for the wives and children.  They came to a land of hope for a better life, America.

 

But here again they did what they knew how.  They worked in mines.  The mines of Southern Ohio were not much better than the mines of England.  But the country was different.  Here it was possible if you saved to buy your own land.  John Willie did.  In Brush Creek Township in Muskingum County, Ohio, he bought land.  There was a little good land that was river bottoms by the Muskingum River.  On the edge of Brush Creek there was about ten acres of flat land good enough for farming, the rest about a hundred acres was hilly rocky land.  You could pasture cattle on it and they did.

 

John Willie married Fanny Peach who also came from England.  They had three children and the farm could not support them.  Still John Willie worked the mines.  In bad times after strikes or when mines closed there was no work.  The good river land was sold.  And later he sold to a coal company the coal that lay under the hill land.

 

The coal was near the surface.  This was not deep mining.  They dug and blasted until they got down to the seam.  They carried the coal away until the seam played out. And then they left.  No reclamation in those days.

 

The hills were barren piles of discarded stone.  Strip sinks were pools of acid water leached from the remains.  The steams bled red from iron in rock dug up and pushed aside.  Time passed.

 

My grandfather died and my grandmother died.  My father owned the land.  He sold the land on Brush Creek and the house but kept the hill land.  No one wanted that.  Slowly the land recovered.  The plants came first sown by the wind from nearby fields and forests.  Animals followed them.  The water year by year washed away the minerals.  The streams do not run red any longer.

 

There are still scars on the land.  Walls of stone (highwalls) cross the hills where the coal seams ended and the strip mines stopped.  But the years and the growth of the forests have renewed the land.  My father had timber cut on the land once.  Not a clearcut but a careful selective harvest.  Then when my mother was quite old they came to her to ask to cut it again.  This was not a careful harvest.  They raped the land a forester told me.  They took more than they should and left invasives free to grow.  After we bought the land someone came in and cut the trees again without our knowledge.  Stealing timber is like rustling cattle, hard to prove unless you are caught in the act.

 

So now we own this land.  We have cleared a little space to build a house.  The timber man who lives next door is clearing out the forests.  He cuts down the invasive Tree of Heaven (good only for pulpwood) to allow the oaks and maples room to grow.  The timber paths he leaves we will spread with wood chips (plenty of them around, God knows).  I have found lots of wild flowers: spring beauty, corydalis, wild geraniums, violets blue and white, bluets, wintergreen, club moss, and mayapples.  The sawyer showed me one ginseng plant.  I hope to plant more native plants.  In time I want a waterfall over the highwall that will be behind our house.  Here we will live and tend the forest, as best we know how.

 

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

dan and rebecca

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BIG PROJECT

LET THE CONSTRUCTION BEGIN

 

Some of you may have thought that we disappeared since we returned from our Mexican condo.  Quite to the contrary, we have been involved in a major project that has consumed much of our time, particularly Mrs. T's.

 

As many of you know, Mrs. T and I have owned about 160 acres (about 65 hectares) just south of Zanesville, Ohio, for several years.  The property had been in Rebecca's family for about 100 years.  It had been strip mined for coal many, many years ago and Mother Nature has since reclaimed it – this was well before reclamation laws were on the books.  We have been intending to build a smaller house there since we acquired the property.  Well, we ran into difficulties from the people then living on the next-door property.  They would not allow us access through their property which would be necessary to get to ours.  Their position was illogical but we had no choice but to pursue legal remedies.  We spent several years going through two cases of litigation and additional actions by the Muskingum County Commissioners.  Finally we reached a settlement, but one that although it provided an easement to our property on paper was in actuality impractical geographically and financially.  And then these folks sold their property.  The new neighbors-to-be are quite a bit friendlier and much more sensible.  We were able to reach an agreement quickly, albeit at a cost of about 30 acres (12 hectares), and are now able to access our property.  (We have since concluded that the people who caused our difficulties probably were stealing lumber from our land.)

 

Next came the protracted process of obtaining a construction loan.  Our credit is superior, the builder's credit is fine (he is the brother of new neighbor), but the bank's procedures lumbered along agonizingly.  Each week they required some new information.  Rebecca handled the process adroitly and with great patience; she knew I would not be nearly as understanding.  Finally, the loan was approved and we signed the papers about 10 days ago.  Construction probably will have commenced by the time you receive this. 

 

We hope to continue with more blog as the building progresses.  Here are just a few preliminary pictures to give you a hint of the forest to which we will be moving.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157600418511906/

 

 

Note on the pictures

You may notice that the pictures are now at Flickr rather than Yahoo.  Some of you might know that Flickr is a Yahoo division and Yahoo has decided to end maintaining two photo sites that essentially provide duplicate services.  We have transferred the old pictures to the new site and will make them accessible in the near future.  We have not quite mastered the ins and outs of Flickr, but it should not take too long to provide the same material.  The pictures look better as a 'slide show' and clicking 'details' will provide descriptions.  The pictures are a bit random at the moment. 

 

In case you did not know:  Strip mining quite literally tears out the coal and all the land (overburden) above the coal seams down to bedrock.  This process leaves the land hilly if it was not already so.  A highwall is like a giant step between levels of strip mining.  The highwalls in the pictures are about 40 feet (12 m) high.

 

Enjoy.

Dan and Rebecca

 

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

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FINAL DIVE

TALE OF PINKY

The last dive day of the season and it was great! No inexperienced divers getting lost. Good visibility and lots of interesting things to see, especially eels.

It actually started a couple of days ago when I was wandering along the edge of the beach, just minding my own business and beachcombing. I like to wade just on the edge to keep my toes cool. You can imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw swimming toward me a pink eel with large black polka dots.

I am used to skepticism of my reports. In fact after Ron and Diane posted that picture of me drinking lemonadas some of you might wonder how many Margaritas I had before I started seeing pink eels. But in fact they were lemonadas, not Margaritas - that's my story and I am sticking with it!

Fortunately I had my camera with me and so I was able to get photographic evidence to back up my tale. I am not very good at photographing moving animals so when he was close I mostly got a picture of the southern end of a northbound eel but I got other pictures of him as he swam away. I did not know what kind of eel this was as I had never seen a pink eel before. I decided to call him Pinky.

When I went diving yesterday the first thing I asked Paul, the divemaster, was did he know of any pink eels with black spots. "Oh yes," he replied, "that is a tiger eel." Paul got out his book of Pacific marine life, turned to the appropriate page, and sure enough there was a picture of Pinky.

I was confused. It seemed to me that if I were going to call something a tiger eel it would be an orange eel with black stripes. But on reflection I realized this was not the case because I knew that an orange eel with black stripes is called a zebra eel. (This does, once and for all, answer that age old question "What's black and white and red all over?" the answer being a zebra eel!)

We went on to have two great dives and saw lots of really neat sea life including a brilliant yellow sea snail. The highlight of the first dive was (Have you guessed?) the biggest, fattest, most Rubenesque eel in the entire world. This eel was a porker!! It was not that long, perhaps about four feet, but the thing was about one foot in diameter. As I do not have an underwater camera, I cannot substantiate this but you all know I would never exaggerate. This eel was called an Argus eel I suppose because it also had big spots. I did not inquire into what exactly an Argus eel might have for dinner, Oh Best Beloved, ignorance being bliss and all that.

We also saw a very large anemone that slurped itself back into its tube as we swam by. There were lots of fish of all different colors and sizes. On the way back we ran into a pod of dolphins that were playing in our wake. There was one baby dolphin that was only about a foot or so long. He was jumping around with the big boys. The whales calve in the bay here, but I do not know if the dolphins do.

At this time of year the humpback whales are beginning their northern migration and next week we make ours.

Rebecca and Dan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157600448629812/

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

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