5/6 The Pour. Concrete was scheduled for 10:00 am, but we still were not done setting the forms to grade. We contacted the ready mix plant in time to delay 2 hr.s. The pump truck was already heading up from Gunnison so he hung out and lent a hand here and there. Once the concrete arrived things went fairly smooth as Dusty handled the pump line, and Annie & Sean screed. Annie learned to giggle fast and move slow. Then the wet mud broke some of the strapping the 2x12's pushed out making some pregnant spots. Sean & Annie contained most of the blow-outs. We finished up and then covered up the forms with blankets.

5/4-5 We hurriedly worked on the footers. Dusty finishing the forms, while Annie cut and bent re bar. Then we called Sean Kelly to come help place bar in the forms. YIPPEE we passed our first inspection!!

5/3 We picked up our forms in C.Springs. Thanks to friends who lent us an extra truck and trailer to haul the pallets. What would seem to be a simple load-up and drive home turned into the longest 10 hours drive from C. Springs to CB.

5/1 AAAUGH! 5"

4/30 CUTTING WOOD!! Dusty started forming the footers, and was very excited to work a couple days without paying someone

4/29YEAH!! Digging is done for now. Many truck loads of dirt have been hauled away, and several loads of road base & gravel brought in to make our foot print stable and level

4/24 - Drain Photos

Here are some promised photos of the drain installation process. The first photo shows the back of our lot with the water in the ditch where the drain is going. A little out of order the next photo shows the drain almost completely put in, you can see the bend in our foundation and where our uphill neighbor's drain is coming into our drain. The last photo shows the drain in a little more detail. You can see the dimple board and fabric up against the back (left side) wall covered with washed rock, the drain pipe is in the middle of the washed rock and on the right side, there is pond liner that will go up the side of our foundation.

4/22 - Progress

So here it is the end of April and we are finally seeing progress from where we left it last fall. The past couple days Dusty along with Todd Parker and Bruce have installed the intercept drain around the back perimeter of our footprint. woo-hoo.

Some history to bring you up to speed in case we haven't had a recent vent session on/with you - per the bank's request we started our dig late last fall and ran into problems with frozen ground and miniature machines. We then requested to wait until spring to continue working, with the large amount of water that was pouring into the back of the hole and the still large amount of dirt work to do we decided to bring in Parker Dirtworks to help finish up the sitework. Dusty spent a large amount of time getting the site ready (read snow removal) for them before they were expected to show up early April. Unfortunately due to snow storms, it was a slow start and has been slow going since but we are seeing progress.

Throughout the course of the winter the hole slowly filled up with water and ice. When Dusty got all the snow off of our ice skating rink, he cut a hole in the ice to begin pumping out the water. When he put the full size trashcan (with the pump in it) into the water, it was completly submerged. So almost all efforts up to this point since have been to mitigate that water.

Did wake up to a hateful white layer this am and so no sitework happening this morning, hopefully they show up this afternoon. Will post pictures soon.

12/1 - Broken

Today we got our first shipment of wood from Colo Springs, very dissapointing. It seemed as if they picked up all the cracked, warped lumber everyone else threw back and loaded it up to CB. They were there at 7 am this am, early am for that driver. Maybe it was dark outside and he just didn't notice. If only that was the case.

Mini X broke a hydraulic hose fitting before noon on the blade. Dusty called the rental company and they came out and looked at it but did not fix it today. Hopefully they fix it first thing in the am. Dusty spent the day moving the piles of dirt with the skid steer out of our foot print on top of the pile I've been working on.

As for the actual hole in the ground. Dusty's got it to grade all along the back of the garage and starting into the master. It is about 10 feet wide. Still a ways to go.

11/30 - !#&*%^$!

So I know you are wondering what those red things are......those are what happen when you stop paying attention running the skid steer in the dark. They were full, after I realized I fell into the hole (just 2 ft deep) and smashed Dusty's new tripod I noticed gas was pouring out of them and got back in to try and move off of them. That didn't work so well, a fountain of diesel shot up about 5 feet in the air. ugh, typical monday I guess. On a happier note, our firend Robb was there the whole afternoon helping Dusty run the skidsteer while he used the mini x.

11/28 - One week in

We ran both machines all today and still feels like we've barely put a dent into getting it to grade. We are guessing we've still got about another week of digging and prep work before we can pour the footers. Dusty is seriously contemplating trying to rent a full sized excavator for a couple days this week. Doesn's quite feel like we have the most appropriate equipment for the amount of materials we need to move. Can't work tomorrow, no heavy (or light) equipment on Sundays.