Merry Christmas to you all! It has been so cold here this week- only 20 to 35 degrees. But no snow, just frost. We have the trusses being delivered on Monday , soon the shop will be completed. We are thankful to God for His provision thru this process. We have learned lots of patience! I have been working on the most important room of the house- planning the kitchen. It is fun to pick out cabinets and colors and try to visulize how we will use the space. We have the pellet stove ordered, it will take a few monthes to get it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a lovely holiday and now on to Christmas! Well, I have been coming to terms with living in the trailer for the duration! Finally we have the foundation in. I am so excited!. You can see the shop foundation in the first picture and the house foundation in the other two. After going to work in the dark and returning in the dark, we finally saw it in the daylight this last weekend. We are supposed to get a load of lumber this next Tuesday, and then maybe we will start seeing progress. I have windows picked out and need to get an appointment with the kitchen planner. I will be glad to have a house by the next summer at this rate.
We have just come back from Myrtle Point and Florence , where we saw our family and friends. David has spent the morning today planting trees. We recieved two madrone trees from our dental hygenist, and half a dozen little fir trees, a dozen or so raspberry starts and butterfly bushes from Curley. I also had a sweetgum and some arbervita shrubs in pots. We had an arborist come out and give us advice about the big 200 yr old fir trees. We have tried to keep the excavation and building away from the limb line as much as possible.
David is snoozing now, with the football game is one, while we cook a turkey on the barbeque. The only thing about going somewhere else for Thanksgiving is no leftovers!

Well, we have broken ground! The excavator was here yesterday to dig out the house site and is finishing up the shop site today. He has covered up the septic and is burying the culvert to re-route the irragation ditch. Tomorrow he will bring in rock and get the driveway cutout and everything rocked in before the rains start. Margie , our contractor, has the foundation crew scheduled and they hope to pour foundation this next week. Max the cat has taken for the hills, untill the contractors dog is gone. Meanwhile lumbar prices continue to go down! We are thankful for God's hand on us and this process. Patience is a virtue. Of course, the satillite dish being installed today will help David's spirits!

Well, here it is almost the middle of October and we still don't have our building permits yet. David is busy working on a pump house before the weather gets bad. We have lovely cool sunny days , and the trees are spectacular with oranges,reds and yellows. We are all set for winter, tho, with our trailer moved and hooked up to power,phone and internet and well. Margie, our contractor, tells me that lumber prices have gone down as well. So it's all good.

Above is the view from my trailer dining table.

Fall is here, with the Oregon countryside turning brown and gold with touches of red viny maples. We have the septic half installed, awaiting final approval. The temporary circuit box and post is up and phone is wired into it. The power company is supposed to bring the power accross the road tomorrow and turn on our power. We are so excited! We will then move the trailor over by the temp post and plug into power and phone. We anticipate the building permits any day now and are hoping to break ground soon. We have been out On The Property for 2 monthes now! We have already had our first frost with temp down to 29 degrees in the morning! We still have tomatoes, but are on the tail end of them. Max the cat has been prowing the Mouse Fields on a regular basis and bringing us offerings, and the deer have made nightly forays to sample David's blueberry bushes, and the fallen apples from our old apple trees we discovered. Button spends her days sleeping or looking for mice and barking at all the strangers who keep driving in and disrupting her home.
Our little oak and maple trees we planted are turning lovely orange and red, and we have tucked in 300 daffidill bulbs waiting for spring!

Well, we did it! We pulled our trailer out to the country and have set up housekeeping! Here is David on his pride and joy, he has been busy mowing and moving heavy objects from one end of 5 acres to the other. Our project this past weekend was to pour a cement pad for the pumphouse. Now we are waiting on the power to be installed. The electrical engineer has told us it will be 8 weeks to get permission from Bonniville Power to run our utilities under their big overhead lines! We also had a delay in getting the building permits, but hope to have them by the end of August. We are enjoying the starry nights and the sunny peaceful days out on the property! The cat and dog have discovered the entertainment of hunting mice in the field.

We had a wonderful time visiting with family the past week or so. Davids brother rode out from Nebraska,with friends George and Linda, on their motorcycles!
Of course, we had to take Garry out to the property to see our 5 acres of blackberries and swamp land!
Hope their ride home is smooth, with only a few shortcuts!

Here is the Garden Shed in various stages. Mabel and Curley worked so hard, we were lucky to have their help!

July 8,2005
Rainy Oregon Friday!

We are getting boxed up and trying to empty out our house, after selling it. I can't wait to get out to the countryside, under the 200 year old fir trees and oaks. This blog will help our family and friends keep up with our building progress.
A lot has happened in the past couple of months- we have sold our house and now are the proud owners of 5 acres of blackberries and marshland! We have put some of the endless stuff we have accumulated into storage, had house plans drawn up, had a well put in, had a garden shed built by David's folks with in 2 weeks. We have bought a 30 foot trailer to live in while the house is being built, and a tractor for David to play with.
We still need to have the builder get the plans to the county for the building permits, get the power installed to the site and the site preparation/blackberry removal/road work. A lot to get done in a short time, but I will start with packing up the kitchen!