Bizzy Bizzy Bizzy...

Well, I did predict that this would be a busy weekend. It was also a highly productive one, from the viewpoint of all three participants - Landlady, M, and myself. We got a lot done.

For Landlady, the objective was to finish the rough electrical and plumbing on the Meadow House, and get it to pass inspection on Monday. M needed to get his retaining wall foundations ready to pour, with the cement truck also due Monday. As for me, I wanted to finish the demolition of the old pantry building, for which I needed more muscle if it was going to come apart in reassemble-able pieces.

So Saturday, while M worked on getting steel in his forms, Landlady and I put up the boxes for light fixtures and finished pulling and routing wire. Sunday we tore down the pantry and hauled its big chunks to the Lair's site. Alas theres more rot damage than I hoped - though not as much as I feared - and I may as well face the fact that I'll be using its bits to build a whole new shed rather than just nailing the sections of the old one back together. But there's still plenty of bits to use, and by putting it right against the back of the Lair it'll serve as a powershed as well as a pantry, so that's a big plus. (I've been planning to put my old scrounged solar panels on a rack behind the lair rather than mounting to the roof as fashion dictates, because I don't want to put holes in my nice tight roof for panels that'll need to be replaced one day. Now I can put them on the shed roof instead.

It rained Sunday and there was some fear of the condition of the washes, but Monday dawned beautiful and cool and for an absolute wonder the cement truck not only showed up on time but didn't even get lost! By nine AM we'd poured six yards of concrete in two short but deep and wide footers and the pour went perfectly!


These are the retaining walls that will allow M's Dome to become M's Earth-Bermed House before snow flies. Yes, that's heavy industrial cable sticking out instead of the 7/8" rebar the plan calls for. We had the cable laying around, and nobody carries rebar that big. Not a helluva lot of skyscrapers going up around here at the moment. The only thing missing is mortar for the blocks, but M has already ordered it and it'll arrive tomorrow. Next weekend we lay block!

After the pour yesterday things started to go a little wrong. We got a whole bunch of trash loaded in the Jeep's trailer, and just as M and I were climbing aboard I remembered that the landfill is closed on Mondays. Then the building inspector said he couldn't possibly make it before two in the afternoon, which considering that Landlady and M needed to drive six hours back to the city was more than a bit inconvenient. But when he finally showed, he passed the house with flying colors and we can MOVE ON! Very exciting.

I picked up a little trash-hauling gig of my own, which means I need the trailer tomorrow, which in turn means I need to empty the *&^%! trailer. I can't just haul it to the landfill, as would make a lot more sense, because after getting paid for shit-shoveling yesterday I sent virtually my last dollar into town with M when they left to make the last payment on my chainsaw. Now I own it free and clear (yay!) and am so broke I can't pay a landfill fee. (boo.)

But the force is still with me, because the trash in this new trash-hauling gig consists almost entirely of old pallets, which make acceptable firewood. So instead of hauling to the landfill as my customer wants, I'll cut it into 16" chunks with my very own, paid-off chainsaw and keep it. Heh.