December 11, 2019 Keeping time

The cold virus still rules at Creekside Farm three weeks after digging its heels into us, so there isn't much progress to report. But a few things happened despite our lack of will to do much out in the rain.

The rains have fallen in inches, much of which has piled up on our home site. Walking around is slippery and displaces clay into deep mud, so we have to wait a day or so after a heavy rain before going back to work on the house. We did get the forms stripped from the foundation footing and it looks great. Since then we have laid down the first twelve inch layer of the stem-wall form.

Working on a flat and level surface is easier, but things are heavy enough to make the work difficult. The first course is really simple to put down, just a big empty box thing. Once we had it all together we rigged up the batter board strings once more and made sure everything was square. Having st these batter boards really helps to keep the measurements accurate, but we did a 3-4-5 measurement on the wall form just to make sure.

A 3-4-5 square measurement is simply measuring from a corner some multiple of three (say 18 feet) then measuring out the wall we're checking for square a multiple of four (24 feet), the measurement between these two point should be a multiple of five (30 feet). If these numbers agree then the walls are relatively square. We were at thirty feet and one-eight inch, probably a measuring error but close enough. We are mostly ready to add another layer to the stem wall forms.

There are a lot of elements to the second course of stem wall form. There are a bunch of half-inch foundation bolts to hold the house to the concrete, four larger earthquake tie-downs straps to hold the corners down in if things get shaky, some rebar tied to the rebar already in the footing  to tie the foundation together, and eight foundation vents that get built into the top form which vent the air out from under the house. All of these elements are already bought, or made from scraps we have laying around. Most of it is already laid out where it will eventually go, but we have to bring in the top boards and tinker toy the stuff together. This step is on hold for drier weather.

Stanley says goodbye

The animals are all doing well. Egg production is very good and people are once more receiving their orders. Our Rocketdog Basset Pups are all sold, the last one will be picked up this Friday. We will miss them all, but the five we already have are enough and Ann says I can't have another no matter how I beg for it.

We took the first trip to town for a sit down lunch since moving to the Farm well over a year ago. We have gone to town for shopping, but never for recreation. We wound up at Kornblatt's deli for soup and sandwich. The soup was good for our colds. Not much else is.

Christmas is coming. Let's hope the colds go away by then.