Reasons why

So, today I was thinking about the reasons why I love living in Conestoga.

I know that there are many reasons why one would not want to live in Conestoga (we won't even go there),  but I wanted to share with you some of the many reasons why I love it here in the country. 

1.  This year I was able to have my first garden.  It was fruitful and we had many delicious veggies that Jesse and I devoured.  I canned and froze veggies for the first time by myself (ok, with the help of my Mom) and enjoyed the time I spent digging in the dirt.  

 2.  Pine View Dairy.  http://www.pineviewdairy.com/  Have you ever been there?  It is an awesome family owned farm and store where they sell their own milk, ice cream, and many more items.  Their milk is AWESOME!  It tastes so good and it comes in a big plastic bag that fits in this cool pitcher! 

3.  I get to hang my laundry outside to dry (wasn't able to do that where we used to live).

4. Cedar loves it here.  This is where he thrives.  He finds all kinds of dead animals to roll in and he has lots of acreage to run around on.

5.  This spring there were hundreds and hundreds of wineberries all over the place for our picking!  They are delicious.  A little more tart the raspberries, but make a dynamite fruit crisp and are good on cereals.  I even made wineberry jam!

6.  And last, but not least, down here in Conestoga we get to see the most amazing wild-life up close and personal.  These two geese were right outside our window, sitting on a nest.  It is not uncommon for us to wake up, look out the window over the pond and have an owl, great blue heron, some deer, turkey, raccoons and ducks to say 'good morning' to.

Take a minute today to think about why you love where you live...

Smoothing out the concrete floor

We are eventually going to be staining this concrete for the finished flooring, so we wanted it as smooth as possible.  Thanks so much, Larry, for all your hard work today with Jesse!!

Concrete

 This morning Larry, Mike and Jesse worked at pouring the concrete floor in the basement.

We chose a 50% blend of recycled concrete/new concrete

 After it dries a little more, they will smooth it out.



The work days begin

Friday evening we worked on the basement floor system. 

First we put down plastic.  Then recycled styrofoam/concrete slabs of insulation.  Lastly we put down the wire meshing for the radiant tubing.

Saturday was a big work day.  We put the radiant heat tubing system down, bracing on the outside of the house for the stone to sit on, and wood on top of the wall system for the rest of the house to sit on. 

My hands are cracked, have splinters and are extremely tired from twisting many, many bolts down.

But, I feel good.  I feel accomplished!

Basement walls

The walls are up!



No more resting

The basement wall system is just about finished.

(pictures to come)

We are using a new system that uses recycled concrete and some sort of styrofoam combination that gives the basement walls better insulation. 

After that, it is all up to us...

No more time for resting...

Time to get to work...

Mailbox

Although this process is only beginning, we had a feeling of finality this weekend when we put up our mailbox.  The postmaster in Conestoga is awesome and let us put up a mailbox without having a house yet!  That way we don't have to change our address twice.

Update:  Our settlement for Marshall St is this Friday.

Footers

Wednesday the footers were poured.

It makes the house size look a little smaller to me, but Jesse keeps convincing me that it is big enough :)

The hole that is dug now does not include the master suite, because that section won't have a basement.  The living space on the first floor will be the same size as what is outlined from the footers... which means we will have the first floor and the basement for livingroom/sitting room area. 

Next on the agenda:
The basement wall system.



The BIG dig

More pictures of the big dig.

We couldn't believe how fast everything went.  The excavators were finished by around 2:00 and we were left with a hole in the earth.

Cedar enjoying the dirt!

The machines weren't the only things digging...

It's a nice day for some digging...

It was such a nice day for digging a foundation!!

What a blessing to have a day off of work so I could watch the excavators work.

I walked up to the lot first thing in the morning to see this:

Clearing the top soil.

The day has finally come!

Thank goodness the rain stopped before the sun came up!  It was alittle muddy, but not bad at all.

Bookside Excavators hard at work.

After clearing the topsoil, they worked on uprooting the tree stumps.

 Thatcher and Oliver came to watch the "diggers."

More pictures to come of the G-I-A-N-T hole!