Almost Dried In

The house roof framing was finally completed this week.  Felt paper was added to the sheeting to help keep any rain out until the shingling is complete.

 This is the front door area facing north.

 South facing side with porch area and attic space

This gives a better view of the porch area on the south side.  Framing for the porches should be started this next week.  Rough in for electrical should be started along with plumbing.  Looking better each week.

Trusses Up

The crew got the trusses on the house Friday.  Just in time for more rain to hit the area.

 This is actually the back of the house but is what you see from the road.  This side faces the view to the south.

Of course this is the garage side and front of the house.  The room above the garage side is our attic or upstairs storage.

Another view looking to the northeast.  The upper part of the trusses have to be added to give the house it's peak.

Now if the rain will stay away and allow the crew to add the sheeting to the trusses.

More to come as they make progress.

House now has WALLS!

After several days of rain the house now has walls.  

This is the view during the rain over the weekend.  

 More walls were added Monday

Garage area framed

Looking from the Great Room out to the front door.

Now the garage is framed the roof trusses should be installed.  More to come next week.

Drain Field in and APPROVED!!

The septic drain field excavation was started and finished in less than two days.  There have been major advances in septic drain fields over the past number of years.  I was used to the old trench with a bottom layer of gravel, a plastic drain tile pipe, and then another layer of gravel.

In our drain field the excavator used an infiltration system.  The trench is still dug but they insert what looks like a fifty-five gallon drum cut in half long ways.

 The infiltration sections are about three to four feet long and hook together in the trench.  Both the entry end and the termination end have a capped off section.  The pipe coming out of the distribution box is connected to the entry end and then the fluid then infiltrates through the length and distributes out into the soil.

 No gravel need in the trench  means it saves time to install and the overall cost is cheaper.

Prior to being totally covered.

Framing is taking place

Now that the foundation walls are in, it is time for the framers to work their magic.  The floor trusses arrived Tuesday and the remaining lumber arrived Wednesday.

The framers marked everything off Wednesday and then added the sill plate.

Thursday they worked on getting the support beam in under the main floor.  Then they added the floor trusses.

View of Master bedroom/bath area.

View of main floor area.

Potatoes in the ground

What a whirlwind day.  We finally got a break in the weather and the ground was dry enough to disc the garden.  Then all the rows were laid off and the potato plow was used to lay off those furrows.

Then it was time to cut the three hundred pounds of potatoes.  With the potato cutter it took only a couple of hours.

If you look close you can see the seed potato sitting on top of a grid of stainless steel knives.

This is the potato being ready to push through the knife grid to give a chunk of potato with an eye.  It takes the eye to grow the plant.  This cutter was purchased through US Small Farms in Wyoming.  I found them on the internet and they specialize in equipment for the small farmer.

This is about two hundred pounds of the cut potatoes.  The easy part is cutting.  They still have to go in the ground.  That process took about three hours since the furrows were already done the day before.  Now it is all up to mother nature to work her magic.  Harvest time is predicted to be early October.