Work Goes On...

The roof is finally sort of on. The trusses finally came. But they came just late enough that, as soon as the workers get here, the giant thunderstorm we were all waiting for broke at last. It rained. And there was lightning, AND there was even hail.
Very depressing. And it's been raining off and on ever since, making mom very anxious.


But it's still a step in the right direction, and hopefully we won't have to worry about rain much longer...

Inside And Out

Well, the walls are officially finished (inside and out).
It's rather thrilling, but the honeymoon period of excitement has worn off a bit. The past few weeks have been a string of wrong-size lintels, broken glass block, unfilled orders, and other mishaps. It's been stressful, to say the least.
But even at that, we can't help being charmed by how the whole thing is turning out. We were walking about in it last night, and I commented that it had very good feng shui. The chi flows very nicely.
And we are all very happy with the glass block windows. We're not sure exactly why, but they seem to say, "dairy."
We have all been eagerly planning the wall colors and such. But none of us has been thinking quite so hard as Dad...

Walls!

Okay...

NOW it really looks like a building.



In other family news, Evan was confirmed today. He was wearing a tie for the first time in... well forever. So we took pictures.


Oh yeah.
Blue steel.

Can You Spell C-O-N-C-R-E-T-E?

And what could this be for? This giant gloop of concrete...Say hello to the brand new floor, ladies and gentleman. It was very quiet around here for most of the week, but today was a frenzy of activity as the floor was poured, and leveled, and finished.

It took a very long time, but the end result-

Is a thing of beauty.

And It Begins To Take Shape

Foundations! Plumbing!

Annnnd...


Dadadum! A septic tank.



It's actually starting to look like it might be a building now. Everyone has been working really hard... Dad even stayed home today to help the plumber trench and lay pipes. We get closer and closer to pouring the floor. The pace of all this is both stressful (okay, really stressful), but exciting. Who knows what we'll see next week.

Is This Really My Backyard?

Blocks! Yes, the walls have arrived... albeit, in unassembled form. Still, it's exciting to see them sitting there waiting for us. Work has progressed at what seems like a breakneck speed after all the slow and careful planning that went into all this. Every day brings some new development, (and some new decision to be made). And the sounds of construction are almost ever-present outside the back door...


As surreal as this project is, we can't wait for the day we can start making and selling cheese. The cement floor should be going in soon. Just wait until the walls go up.

Pilgrims' Progress

OK, so the Pilgrims didn't pour cement footers and drop crushed cement driveways. Fair enough; maybe pioneers are a wee bit closer to the homesteading that is going on here. Regardless, progress is good. Phil Belk should be laying block as quick as the delivery gets here, and we may even have the rough plumbing in before end of next week. Then we begin the wait on the county inspector, and hope we can get our state dairy inspector Tommy Harrel out here before he goes fishing for two weeks. Then we can start pouring the cement floors!