Rain, Rain, Go Away

This is what I have learned about building a house so far:

Just when you think everything is finally starting to move along, something unexpected will happen to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Or if not a monkey wrench, perhaps a unseasonal storm. Or two. Or ten.

Yep, because we are building a house, we have had the wettest couple of weeks that anyone can remember. Seems that the Weather Gods enjoy messing with construction schedules. They toss a torrential rain here, a wallop of hail there, and look how the ant-like humans scramble! What fun to create a domino effect of delaying a concrete pour, so that the framers also get delayed, and the backfilling can't happen, and so on, ad infinitum.

Not only do said gods enjoy the delays that makes us puny humans tear our hair out, they also get quite a giggle out of causing damage wherever they can, like to our poor roughed-in road.

Rain + cement trucks = one very sad, sad road.

This is what our road looked like after the cement guys tried to make it up to the site, slid all over the place, then gave up and went home. Not a pretty sight!

The scouring rain also sent many tons of sediment washing down into our not-quite-finished culvert/drainage trenches, which will now need to be dug out all over again.

But wait: the Weather Gods  had another trick up their sleeve: HAIL! Oh my goodness, when Nevada skies get to hailin', they don't hold back. Most hail storms I have seen in other places were brief, but the one we got last week had some serious staying power, taking its sweet time while pelting our sage and pinion world with a thick layer of pea-sized ice balls.

This was the Eveready of hail storms...it kept going, and going, and going...

I could only imagine what a hellish tattoo the horses were enduring at the barn, which has a metal roof that is loud even when it rains. Knowing my boys, they probably scooted out of the barn as soon as the hail started to fall, preferring to get pelted rather than stay put in such a thunderous and scary racket.

Fortunately, even a freakishly long string of storms must eventually come to an end, and when it did, the site got busy again. Yesterday, I got to watch as the concrete for the stem walls was poured, which was very cool to see. The concrete gets pumped through a big tube carried by a huge, articulating boom that can easily reach across the entire site.

The concrete boom reaches for a far corner.

One guy controls the boom with a wireless joy-stick set-up, which required great concentration to keep it moving and in just the right position. See kids, playing all those video games IS applicable to employment in the real world!

This fellow (who calls himself "Butter" -- I kid you not), controlled the boom, a very precise job.

The guy on the other end aims the tube as it shoots wet concrete into the forms, which have a slot in the top just for this purpose.

Other guys then come along and stuff the concrete down with their gloved hands, while another walks along banging a hammer on the sides of the forms, all aimed at eliminating any air pockets inside the forms.

The concrete production line.

There was also some catch-up work to do with the footings that had not gotten poured on the day the trucks could no longer make it up the road.  I got to watch this, too, and was impressed by the care and finesse that went into creating smooth and level surfaces for the footings.

Smoothing the footings.

Speaking of smooth and level, it really was amazing to see how precise all of this work has been. Michael explained to me that it is extremely important for the foundation work to be spot on, according to the plans, as any mistakes or lack of evenness in the foundation can cause serious problems for everything that gets put on top of it. For this reason, the entire site was carefully marked and measured using bright string.

Marked and measured form showing the slot on top for concrete and the string that criss-crossed the whole site.

Then, just when we thought the sky would be blue and beautiful for days to come, some clouds formed up out of nowhere and started to spit -- at the precise moment that we were trying to get the last concrete truck up to finish the stem wall pour.

Where the heck did these come from?

Fortunately, we got lucky, with the rain staying too light to be of any consequence. Phew! We caught one small break at least.

So, now we are hoping that Roberto's crew gets the wooden forms off in time for Jason to do the backfilling, which is supposed to happen tomorrow afternoon. We thought the forms were coming off today, but when I went up to check this evening, they were still there. Sigh.

The framers are supposed to start on Monday -- that will be really amazing to watch! Floor joists first, then walls will start to sprout up, giving the whole thing a new sense of reality.

Meanwhile, we at least know that we are really and truly a construction site now -- because we have a Port-o-Potty on site!  No more peeing behind a bush for our hard-working crews.

All the comforts of home!

And, they should be extra grateful that they won't have to go tromping off behind the bushes these days, as the warmer weather we are getting has started to bring out the rattlesnakes.  Michael found this one in the driveway of our rented house just the other day:

Not a fellow you want to meet when going to answer "nature's call"!

While the rattlers are not a welcome sight, we are starting to see the very welcome return of larger numbers of wild horses, many of whom go off to parts unknown for several months in late Winter/early Spring.  We had a herd of about a dozen behind our yard today. You can see them by clicking on the video below:

And, check out the off-the-charts cuteness of this little girl, who was born to a small band we call "The Simpsons", after the cartoon family. The rather homely mare is Marge, the stallion is Homer, the filly born last year is Lisa, and this baby girl is (naturally) Maggie. Had she been a boy, she would have been Bart -- maybe next year will see the family complete! We were all surprised that Marge gave birth to such a colorful and pretty baby...we hope Maggie takes more after her daddy than her mom in terms of conformation, as poor Marge is the epitome of poorly put together.

Baby Maggie, as cute as they come.

I have taken pictures of baby Maggie twice now, and it has been very sweet to see what her older sister does when she thinks someone is possibly a threat to baby sis. Lisa, who has always been afraid of people, making herself scarce if you come anywhere near her, will now march right up to me fairly close, putting herself between me and Maggie. I can see real fear in her eyes -- she is still just as scared of people as she ever was -- but she is willing to put herself at risk to protect Maggie. 

Meanwhile, their momma, Marge, couldn't care less, as she is rather over-acclimated to humans. It was Marge, in fact, who gave me my very first wild horse encounter soon after I moved here. She was in our front yard with Homer and Lisa, who was a small baby then herself. When I went out to take her picture, Marge walked right up to me and sniffed my hand, hoping I might have some sort of treat for her. This is not supposed to happen -- it is illegal to feed the wild horses, but lots of people do, creating this "semi-tame" kind of scenario we see with Marge. 

Marge with baby Lisa last Fall, in front of our rented log house.

Well, that's all for the moment, folks. More next week when the framing starts!

Love to all.