Truss Day!

Today was one of the most exciting days yet. They got the shop framed yesterday afternoon when I was down in Alpine, and today the trusses came.  Nothing like a pointy roof line to make a bunch of lumber start to really look like a building.

All the shop trusses and half of the house trusses went up today, under a spectacular Campo sky.

The walls of the shop are 10' high, to give me plenty of elbow room and allow me to add carports on each side some day.  It's so exciting to stand in my dream shop and the house and see it all come to life.

And, because it's cast iron and darn heavy, the bathtub came today too, so it can be installed before there are interior walls and doors to get in the way.

I wasn't kidding about the spectacular sky:

Framing

My trailer is situated so I can sit right here at the dinette and look out the front windows at my new house taking shape.  I've  been trying to stay in here and out of the way of the workmen as much as possible, but I have to go out now and then to take pictures.

They brought me Matt's generator today so I could charge my trailer batteries, and while I was at it, I treated myself to a little air conditioning. Still pretty warm here in Campo in the second week of October, but we did get a light sprinkle of rain this morning.

I'm pretty worried about Molly out here, because I know there are coyotes, and today one of the workmen had laid his nail pouch on the ground and found a baby rattler in it! (shudder...)  Molly has been free to run on two acres back in Alpine and snoop under things looking for lizards.  I'm sure she doesn't understand why I keep her on a leash most of the time here, but this is wilder country.  I only have one neighbor, and all the land on three sides of me is undeveloped with lots of trees and brush.

This evening before dark she made a break for it, pushing the screen door open with her nose and bolting.  By the time I got my hat (and my coyote gun) she was out of sight, finally coming back from way across the property after I called her several times.

It's a dilemma: do I let her run free and enjoy life, even if it means a premature and rather unpleasant death, or keep her on a rope the rest of her life until she dies of old age?  Poor thing... She doesn't bark or complain, but she really wants to run.  I suppose I will end up building some kind of a fenced yard, but I've read that coyotes can jump a 7' fence, so unless I want this place to look like a gulag, any fence I build will just be to keep her close to the house.  It won't keep the bad guys out.

Well, I guess it's official

A five-acre place ought to have a name, and I've been thinking the name of my place should be Sábado, which means Saturday in Spanish.  (I'm only five miles from the Mexican border.)

Saturday is the happiest day of the week, and I consider retirement to be the Saturday of life.  You work all week, but when Saturday rolls around, you get to do whatever you like!


Today the name became literally etched in stone.  They finished pouring the porches and trailer slabs, and I got there in time to do a little graffiti with a sharp nail.

I scratched the name in the front edge of my porch, right where you enter.

Also autographed the corner.  That's almost a requirement for new concrete.

 So I now have two nice pads adjoining the shop: one for the trailer, and one for my little electric boat.  Eventually I hope to build carport roofs over the pads.

Framing starts Friday.  Stay tuned!

Foundation

On September 23, exactly one year from the day I bought the land, the groundbreaking is done, the footing trenches are complete for both the house and the shop, and the under-slab plumbing is in,

The house, seen from the back

That's a toilet and a bathtub you're looking at.

The Shop

Next comes a plastic vapor barrier, a four-inch layer of sand, and rebar.

These guys really get into their work!  They're standing in my dining room.

Couple more trucks on the way for the shop

And here's the shop.

Next week, we'll get the porch floors and a parking slab on each side of the shop, and after the concrete all cures a few days, framing!

Stay tuned!