50th Anniversary

May 2011 - Parge and Tar

Once the water situation was (somewhat) under control, we could start parging. Work was hit or miss because we were still fighting rain. So when it rained - we pumped water and cleaned the footers. Then we might parge some. Then it would rain again and the process started all over.

Here is a shot of the parged foundation, along with 1 of the pipes along the outside to help with the water.

View of 1/2 parge, 1/2 tar. Again - the painting of tar (or foundation sealant) was often delayed due to the rain/pump/clean cycle.

Shot of the front wall, parged and tarred - almost to grade. This was as high as we could reach without using a ladder. We will finish the rest after gravel is in place and we can stand on it to reach the top.

April 2011 - Foundation

Masons started laying the foundation in the middle of winter (2010-2011) on some warmer days. Turned out there weren't enough warm days so we had to wait until it warmed up. They were able to finish by April 2011.

By that point we started the Spring of constant rain. We was wonderful for the foundation! We spent a long time finding water, hopefully diverting what we can, and eventually it dried up enough to move onward.

Here's the completed foundation. Note the 2 pumps that were (heavily) used to pump out water throughout all the rain.

Here's a view of the outside of the foundation. This must have been a good day because the footer was dry in parts. Guess that meant Charlie and I were out shoveling mud before I took this picture.

Some of the effort to find where the water source was underground. I love that backhoe. Can't imagine how much money we would have spent to get this kind of work done for us!

It has an Address

The police stopped by - not that we feared the worst or anything - and collected an official GPS location of our house. A few days later in the mail, they sent us our new official address: 6105 Upper Craigs Creek Rd. Don't mail anything to it yet, as there is no mailbox.

The night after the footers were poured, we had a nice thunderstorm. So then we had to clean up the mess.

Here's Bob clearing out some of the dirt between the footers.

After we finished cleaning out the dirt, we then had to put in the gravel. Here's Charlie raking the gravel. I did help - contrary to what the pictures show.

In December we finally located a mason that could show up and do the work. Here's the beginning of the foundation!

A slightly closer shot of some of the wall.

Excavation Party

10/8/10 is a big day, we've started excavation. We didn't know if pictures would do it justice so I agreed to pose in order to provide some perspective.

Here's is the equipment brought in for the actual digging. 953 CAT trackloader, the front bucket is about as big as a double bed.

Here I am standing in the basement - the back-right corner, the hole is about 5 ft deep.

The closest corner is where I was standing in the picture above. On the far end of the hole is the side where the garage will be. Front of the house is to the left.

Here is the dirt pile. I am standing sort of behind the pile, so it may look a bit larger than it really is. But then again, maybe not. I tried to climb up it but it is packed too loosely.

Let there be Water

In September our well was drilled. Rose and Bob were spectators/participants in the day's activities. Bob helped dig a ditch for some of the overflow, while Rose was the photographer.

Some impressive equipment is necessary.

Somewhere they hit black shale, which mixes with water to form this lovely sludge. Thankfully there was a lovely trench dug....

All in all: the well is just shy of 300ft deep, with somewhere between 7-10 gallons per minute. A few things should work to our advantage, including that the well was dug during a very dry spell. So we hope that this well will be more than we need as long as we use it!

Happy Birthday

Nothing like a birthday weekend to do some cleaning....

Here is a picture of the rye planted on the septic field. The field is about 1/4 acre, which oddly enough is roughly the size of our land we owned in Manassas.

This is of some of the area that the Goodwins raked and cleaned up, the area was covered with sticks and branches. My dad loves these stumps, as his "Catawba" day job seems to be knocking the dirt out of them. He is probably the most enthusiastic stump cleaner, and the most thorough.

The foreground is around the burn site, then our nice gravel pile, and the background is of the new septic field with some lovely rye growing.

Here is one of the ugliest trees we dealt with on Sunday. Cumbersome branches made this one fun.

The 3 core Bennetts all taking a break, nice day out on Sunday. 70's and overcast meant it was perfect to be outside all day.