Progress report...

Progress report...  Yesterday was a very busy – and long – day for me.

In the early morning I hauled junk out of the house and into a couple of dumpsters I'd ordered up.  This junk was comprised primarily of two things: old house components (Venetian blinds, broken lights, etc.) and packing material left over from online (mostly Amazon) deliveries.  The latter was the biggest part of it – it's been accumulating since we started the remodeling in April, and over that period we've purchased a lot of house parts, both big and small.  For the most part they ship in big, bulky protective boxes with lots of padding, and that adds up fast.  For example, just a couple weeks ago I ordered and received 10 steel wire shelving units.  Each of these came in a thick box with lots of interior padding and supports.  All by themselves, those boxes made a big pile!

Then around 9 am it warmed up enough that I could stand working on the tractor, and I started the remaining trenching.  Shortly after I began, my friend and neighbor Tim D. – a serious glutton for punishment – showed up to help, with a big smile unaccountably plastered all over his face.  We worked steadily from then through 4 pm to finish (hooray!) the deep (4') water supply trench between the house and the barn.  Along the way we discovered an unmarked gas main (yikes!), an expected gas main, and an expected irrigation pipe – and we miraculously failed to break any of them.  Tim worked this entire time down in the trench, and refused to swap places with me.  He's crazy, but in a good way :)

At around 4 pm Jim J., my builder, showed up with a roll of plastic 1" water pipe, drills for getting through my house's foundation, and a bunch of tools and parts.  Over the next two hours, Tim, Jim, and I laid the water pipe all the way from the house to the barn, with a tee over to where our greenhouse will (we hope!) live one day.  We couldn't quite finish that job, as we were short a coupler and an end cap.  Jim is hoping to have them this morning, and then that pipe will be completely finished.

Today Tim is coming over to help again.  We've got a short stretch of 2' deep trench (for a gas line) to dig, and then we're going to fill in 2' of dirt on top of the water pipe.  We may get stopped by a snowstorm at any point, as the forecast calls for it to start momentarily and there are threatening looking clouds in the sky.  With luck we'll get that done, and then we'll be ready for the gas line and for two direct-burial network cables.  Both of these will go on top of the water pipe, at a depth of 2'.  The gas pipe will go in on Monday, weather permitting.  My hope is to be completely ready for that by Monday morning.

If we get the gas line in on Monday, then late on Monday or early on Tuesday, I'll be filling in the trenches completely.  One final thing remains then before I can head down to Jamul: I have to place the electrical transformer foundation.  That's probably only a couple hours of work – but I can't start it until all this other stuff is done.  I'm working towards having all this finished by Tuesday evening so I can head down to Jamul on Wednesday, and make it there for Thanksgiving dinner with our good friends Jim and Michelle B...