Week 12

Got my window seat/shelf installed in the bow window in the dining room, and drywall up by Tuesday evening.

There was some plumbing done, the ensuite shower and basement bathroom got their fixtures installed. The water and sewer lines were pushed to the house and the sewer tank hooked up and we now have water and sewer at the house but not quite ready to use in the shower yet.

Kerry and I painted the garage. We thought it would be easier to do it before all the wiring and panels, and garage door openers etc got put in and so we gave it a coat of primer and one top coat and it sure looks brighter and clean in there . We also gave the mechanical room in the basement a coat of primer to brighten it up, but that wasn't as much fun as there were already a lot of things we had to paint around.

And there was a lot of mudding and taping going on as well, and that project should get finished this week. We need to get paint, and flooring, and doors and trim, etc, etc, etc. Stay tuned.........................

It's Underway

Hard to believe if I didn't see it with my own eyes, but harvest 2010 is underway. I think that this must be another record for this farm. Only July 21, and the first grain of the season is coming off the field and into the bin. The winter wheat that was seeded back in September of last year is ready for harvest, and though it is not totally dry, with the forcast for rain, it is coming off. Good thing we have bins with aeration. Swathing the first 30 acres on Monday.

Aaaannnd.....................

......... theeey'rrre................

OFF!!!!!

And with that come some normal harvest duties for me as well, I'll likely make my first field supper, and I get to test the grain samples, with our new tester that is sharing space with my washer and dryer. Some things still stay the same.

Week 11

Boy how time flies! Another week has come and gone and the next is underway. Last week saw good progress again. We started Monday with finalizing our kitchen plan, which meant working out the last details of the cabinet layout, choosing our counter top and also the pulls. It feels good to be able to put that aside for now.

Tuesday, our hot tub was delivered, but because we are not quite ready for the install yet, it is parking on the dike for now. Wonder if we could fill it and warm it somehow??? It sure would be nice to relax in it after some of our long days. Guess we could go sit in it as it is, but it wouldn't be quite the same..........guess we will just have to wait.

Inside the house, the insulation was finished and drywall put up. It feels quite different inside now with all the rooms taking on their final shape. Now we can really start to see how it will all look. So far we are not making any changes, at least not major ones, though we had to move some plugins in the kitchen after finalizing our cabinet plan. I am just glad we caught it before all the drywall was up, or before the cabinets came. Our electrician responded quickly to our emergency call and all was soon taken care of. The above photo shows part of the dining room, part of the kitchen, and the hallway leading to the bedroom.

Looking out from my pantry area in the kitchen to the dining and living rooms.

The east wall of the living room, the stair well and hall closet. Now it is time for me to decide what colors I want to paint. I have ideas but not sure how to put it all together. We also make a trip in to Wpg on Saturday night because we realized that the plumber was coming Monday to do the shower plumbing and we didn't have the taps yet. So, good progress, some decisions made again, but many more still to come......and the winter wheat is almost ready to harvest!

Week 10

Things keep moving along, even though to the untrained eye there might not seem to be much progress. I am getting a good education in the processes of building a house, and so my eye is not so untrained anymore. It is just tougher to take pictures of the progress, but here are a few from this past week.

Our shower did arrive on Tuesday morning and got placed and built in in the next couple of days. The first part of our ensuite to be in place.

See the white stuff in the walls? That's insulation, and they got started with doing the walls on Friday. They also spent 2 days blowing the insulation into the attic on the house and garage, so it is sounding quieter in the house now when you go in.

There were also some doors installed. This is out front door, and we also had doors to the screen porch and out of the dining room installed. We had bought the door hardware, but turns out it is not the right stuff so we have to return it and get something else. We need to be able to close off the house to the outside world and the wildlife that inhabits our yard. There is a mother cat and 2 kittens that have been sleeping in the piled up insulation in the house. Not sure if I like the fact that someone else gets to sleep there before we do, even, or especially if it is cats. At least they didn't make a mess of things.

The garage ceiling got nailed out and drywall put on the wall between the house and garage.

Kerry and I made another trip to Grand Forks for drywall, and some trim for the siding on the outside of the house. The Hardie siding with which we will finish the outside was delivered as well. There was more work done on soffit, there seems to be a lot of that, and other less visible, but necessary jobs done. We did some more kitchen planning now that we had the measurements for our appliances and I have had paint pages lying around in the RV as I try and get a feeling for what kind of colors I would like to have in the house. I'm thinking I will have to decide that soon. Friday at noon we had our first meal out on the back deck. Kerry and I decided it was time to feed the construction crew and so we had a nice meal together out there. Friday afternoon I sat on the edge of the front porch and thought that it will be a good place to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee or tea on an afternoon. There was shade, shelter from the wind and it just felt good, like it will be a good place to relax and enjoy. Let me know if you would like to come join me there sometime. Sunday morning Kerry and I wandered over there and sat on the back screen deck for a while and enjoyed the morning sunshine and it was nice. Too bad we had forgotten to take our coffee.

On the farming front, Kerry and Erik have been cleaning out grain bins in the mornings before the heat sets in, and hauling what they can to the elevator. The winter wheat is changing color and so it is time to get the combines out and get them checked out and ready for the harvest. I am picking peas from our garden, now that we can keep the deer out, and have been eating lettuce, and dug our first potatoes the other day. Waiting for the first ripe tomato, but I think that will be a while yet. So now it is Monday morning again, and another week underway, and I need to go and pick peas. Have a good week all, and keep your eyes open to see God's wonders. Enjoy!

Unexpected Blessing

We are getting a new home. I never thought that we would be in this place in life. We were happy with the house we had and had no plans to build a new one. It was old, but it had character and we were happy there. But God had other plans. It is now 3 months since our house burned down, and so much has happened since then. Sometimes it still feels a bit unreal, but I know it is true. I can see it happening before my eyes so it is hard to deny. But it is not easy. It is overwhelming at times, it is frustrating at times, and there are so many things to think of and decisions to make. Some days are easy and we are excited about the progress and getting a new house. There is lots of paperwork to do, and insurance to deal with. Then there is life, and all the normal things that still need doing and our days are full from morning to evening.

I was thinking about all these things a while back, and in my devotions I read again the verse that spoke to me in the early days after the fire. In Isaiah 61:3 it talks about giving a crown of beauty instead of ashes, and in Psalm 67:12 it says "we went through fire and water but you brought us to a place of abundance." I agreed that we were being brought through the fires and ashes and were were coming to a place of beauty and abundance and I praised God for this blessing, but I asked Him why if it was good, was it so hard. He told me it was because it was so unexpected. Wow! I had never thought of it that way. Lots of time we thank God for blessings that are planned for and prepared for, or if they are unexpected, they are like a gift, ready to be enjoyed. This new house is a blessing, but but the path is difficult because we had never planned for this. We can see God's hand in so much of this house building experience thus far, and we know He is in it with us, and He is bringing us to a place of abundance and so we give Him praise. But still, every day is not easy and sometimes we feel like running away, but then I look at the house and am reminded of this blessing, this unexpected blessing, that God is giving us. He just wants us to learn and grow and trust in Him through this all, and He is faithful. He continues to give us strenth and wisdom, and we are doing okay.

Week 9

What a hot and muggy week this one turned out to be. Things kept moving along though on the house front. One of the most noticeable things was the shingles on the house. With the garage roof, and porch roof done, the shingling could get done on the front part of the house.

The shingling crew worked a couple of evenings to get the roof done to the point where all that was left was the ridge caps.

Saturday morning, Kerry and Erik and I went up on the roof to finish up. This is a view of the roof from the top. This is the north half of the roof, the south side isn't very interesting, all it has is one stack sticking up out of it. It felt really good to have this finished and know that now if it rains, the house should stay dry on the inside.

Monday morning Kerry and I went to Wpg to pick up decking for our porches and by Tuesday evening our screen porch had a nice deck floor, and a spot for the hot tub.

Starting from the top left corner, the soffit got installed on the front wrap around porch. Next picture shows the decking that got put on there. Bottom right shows the garage window that got installed. There is another one on the other side of the garage. Bottom left shows the attic hatch/stairs that we put into the garage so that we can use the space up there for storage and have easy access.

These pictures show just some of the work that got done. There was still some electrical work happening as well on some daysand another window installed up high on the front of the garage, and Kerry and I were shopping. One day we went to Grand Forks to pick up doors that we had ordered, as well as some other supplies and spent some time shopping for appliances. The next day we went to pick up the shower we had ordered 3 weeks ago, only to find out that they had ordered the wrong one by mistake. Luckily there was another one available in the city so they will deliver it to us early this week. And we did more appliance shopping. Saturday we finished up the roof and we went to Wpg to do more appliance shopping. This time we had success and before the day was done had purchased a fridge, a microwave, a cook top and a wall oven. That was a big relief. We couldn't believe how hard it was to find what we wanted, but we persisted and we are happy with what we bought. Now our kitchen cabinet plan can be finalized and we can move on to other things. There is also always lots of clean up to do around a job site and so evenings were spent doing that. We also ordered our siding. Things are moving along and every day brings more progress and more decisions but so far we are happy with our house and looking forward to being able to move in and enjoy this unexpected blessing.