Week 3 - Day 16 - Thars a Hole in My Hillside, Dear Liza

:-) Title was stuck in my head from Gigi's songs...

They dug the hole for the foundation today!

Digging out the first corner- or as Gigi says, "This is Gavriel's room."

My trees, my trees, they cut down all my trees! (This is Jen)

Far, right corner is Gigi's bedroom. Not really. Most of the BR's are on the second story, but Gigi's room IS in that corner- just 2 floors up as she likes to tell us.

Scoping out the hole.

Shovel for comparison.

Sticks, sticks everywhere! Good thing they understand what they all mean!

A pasted panorama of the whole hole. (Click on the picture to see the picture better.)

Another panorama of the top of the driveway where the circle will be.

Week 3 - Day 15: The Driveway!

Why do people call the place you park the Driveway, and the place you drive a Parkway? No idea, but our Driveway was rolled in today! {cue the Happy Dance}

Lots of pictures today, so let's get to it!

A fun shot of, as Gigi told me in no uncertain terms this morning,
the excabator. She even sounded it out looking at me very seriously.
"The EX-KAH-BAY-TOR!" :-)

Rolling the lower driveway...

Arranging the gravel in the middle of the driveway...

Zuber Construction does great driveway work! :-)

Mike and Barry (the surveyor) talk about the house location...

Mike talks with us about the house location...last chance to change it!

Barry marks it down. The house is set!

Meanwhile, down the driveway - more gravel deliveries!

Arranging the gravel for the top of the driveway...

Our front door!

Moving dirt to make my driveway circle up top.

As they were working on the driveway, they
still had to dodge the work vehicles finishing up the road...

Just for comparison, here is a "Before" Shot of the driveway.

And the "After." We absolutely love the slightly meandering driveway!

A couple more trees had to go to make room for the circle...

And move some more dirt...

At this point, they are about 8-10 feet into the hillside, and for every foot further they go in, there is a LOT of dirt to put somewhere else! As Ron said, "It's hard to bury dirt!" But it's looking great, and we are so excited to see how much it changes every day!

*Jen's note: I've been writing the family blog for almost 3 years now, and I have to say it is very hard for me to "let go, and let Jim." :-) Two posts in a row now! My finger tips are itching. He does a great job though, and takes awesome pics.

Week 2 - Day 12: Rain, Rain Go Away!

The driveway work resumed on the Ridge today, and almost immediately stopped because of rain. A little was accomplished though. Monday through Wednesday of next week promise good weather, so I would bet that Mike will be workin' the trucks hard! :-)

Week 2 - Day 11: Construction Loan Close

We closed on our construction loan today. It's really and truly official.

Unfortunately the county has been paving the road all week long which means absolutely nothing has been happening on the Ridge. Zero. They are supposed to be finished today which means Mike will have the gravel trucks there first thing tomorrow. Unless of course it rains.

I didn't realize that praying for the stars to align would be part of the building process, but whatever it takes! We're getting so excited. A baby boy and a new house all in the same time frame. Life is good!

No more movement this week

The county repaving schedule has messed with our schedule, and there will be no more work done on the ridge this week. The road is being paved with stimulus dollars, therefore federal regulations have to be followed while doing this repaving. That means no heavy machinery on the second and third layer of asphalt.

If the county sticks to their schedule, Ron and crew should be able to get back up to the Ridge early next week.

The good news is that there was more work completed on Monday and Tuesday than anticipated, so we really are just waiting for the gravel trucks in order to finish the driveway.

The driveway is at a 13% (7.5 degrees) incline which doesn't sound like much, but is fairly steep. Not San Francisco steep, but not something Northerners envy come winter time. Right now the base is packed clay which is beautiful in terms of a nice solid base for our road. However, if it gets wet from rain, it's one big slick hill. Grab a sled, and who needs snow! The downside is that when it rains and becomes slick, vehicles can't get up the driveway.

We desperately need the gravel!

Week 1 - Day 2: The Gravel Trucks are Delayed

Yesterday the base was put in, and today was
all about dropping gravel and rolling it in. Right?
Well, they showed up at the job site this morning to find this:

That's right. Paving RIGHT IN FRONT of the driveway. The gravel trucks aren't allowed to come for the rest of the week! So, long story short, Ron and Ken had to find some other work to do till the road is done. And boy did they find it!

First they rollered what was there:

Then they yanked the final few trees along where the driveway needed to go...

Then they went to work up top! That upper part of the driveway was in dire need of fill to help it be a reasonable height:

So Ken put the excavator to work clearing off the topsoil
and taking some clay to fill in on the driveway:

Oh - and you see that apple tree in the background to the right of the excavator in the above picture? Use that as a reference and see how much has changed in a day and a half:

And...from the apple tree's perspective:

Finally, a shot up the mostly-done driveway.
We have been told that it's a 13% grade.

Week 1, Day 1b: The Clock Starts

Even though we officially broke ground on Saturday, today marks the day the clock really starts. Ron came over on Saturday to get a head start by himself, but today more of his crew showed up, and they brought an excavator with them. Lots of work on the driveway.

Pic 1: First, here's a shot standing on the edge of the road,

looking up the driveway. A 13 degree grade!

Pic 2: They're really cutting down deep to minimize the driveway grade.

Pic 3: Here's a shot up the driveway from the spot
where the bulldozer is in pic 1 above.

Pic 4: Looking down the driveway from up top...

And of course, this is the week that the county chose to repave our road!
(picture taken standing at the edge of our driveway)