House Status Update

This has been a crazy summer, and I have a lot of photos and trips to post, but right now, it feels like it's time for a house update. Because we are still not living in our new home, and that is a lot of what has made this summer a little chaotic to put it mildly.

This photo above is our septic system. The septic system that was supposed to be done months ago, but that's beside the point at this stage. We're just happy that it is now almost finished. We have an inspection scheduled for Tuesday and then I think the crew will fill everything in, and we'll be able to flush toilets! One very crucial step towards FINALLY being able to live over there.

We've also been working with a couple of friends to get more of the big junk out of way--Peanut got to use the backhoe to smash a small shed and move it to the lumber pile.

The whole middle of our property has looked like a construction zone most of the summer as the contractors have finished different projects. But everyone has been working slower than promised (I can't tell you how many weeks our septic guy has told us it will be finished the next week.)

And here's the hard part. Back in the beginning of May, our landlady asked us to sign a year lease. She'd had to do some repairs to the house (some of which we did the labor for to save her some money) and I can see why it prompted this after being month to month for 7.5 years, but knowing that our house should be ready sometime this summer (so we thought), we decided we needed to explain our situation to her. We told her we didn't have a date yet, but would give her notice, as much as possible, as soon as we knew when we'd be leaving.

Well, I think she kind of panicked at the thought of us leaving after all this time and she came back a couple of weeks asking if we thought we'd be out by mid-July. We told her probably not, but that we would for sure let her know in plenty of time to find new renters. And two days later, she told us we needed to be out by the end of June because she had new tenants moving in. We tried to offer her more money for the couple extra months that we needed, but she wouldn't budge. After 8.5 years of living there and taking care of things for her (including installing a new water heater just a couple of months before to save her $2000), she kicked us out on June 28th. 

And so, we've been technically homeless all summer. We've been incredibly lucky that two different families offered to let us housesit for them while they traveled, which meant we've only had one night in a hotel between those two offers, but our housesitting time runs out at the beginning of September and we're still working out where we will move to next. And yes, it's been as stressful as that sounds. We have things stored in so many places (a Pod, the property shed, in the new house, in the old house and patio on our new property, at work, in our big van, and with us) that it's hard to keep track of things these days and having to start the school year like this has been a challenge, not to mention that our current house is 25-30 minutes away from everything, so we are all commuting and most of us aren't used to that (Daddy-o just has an extra 15 minutes or so to his normal commute.)

So, we're just waiting. Waiting for the contractors to actually finish the job. Waiting for PG&E to decide that letting people be homeless when they literally have a house just waiting for them isn't okay when it would only take them 1 hour to cut and swing the wire from the old house to the new so we can get electrical. Waiting for the go ahead that we can move in. It's so close that it could happen in the next couple of weeks, but the way things have gone, that could also stretch until the end of the year (I REALLY hope this isn't the case.)

So, who knows where we'll be in Sept--your guess is as good as mine!

In Other Happenings

Warning: These first couple of pictures are disturbing--no blood and gore, but still hard to look at if you don't like that sort of thing. So scroll past if you don't want to see!

This summer/fall has felt like it largely revolved around Bug leaving us, but we have had other things going on. Starting with the biggest thing--

Daddy-o took a nasty fall off a ladder at work and ended up spending a day in the ER. It ended up not being broken, just a severe dislocation which they had to put him under in order to reset.

The doctor told him he was lucky that he didn't die since a lot of ladder incidents end up much worse. He was about 8 feet off the ground when the ladder slipped down the wall it was balanced on so he had about 1 second to try to figure out how to land to inflict the least damage (and have the smallest chance of hitting his head), and he did fall pretty well, just got his left leg tangled up with the ladder.

Orthorpedic surgeon decided he didn't need surgery, just a boot and physical therapy. Swelling was so bad at his first PT appointment that they couldn't really do anything. Over a month later, it's still swollen, but not nearly as bad. His orthopedist is really happy with his progress (he's walking in normal shoes already!) and has hopes that he'll recover full range of motion, but he's got a lot of work to get there. We're just glad it wasn't his right ankle so he's been able to drive the whole time.

Peanut had an awesome swim meet where he got three PRs, which finally broke through a plateau he'd had for a while. He's got a new coach, and is swimming 3-4 times a week now and it seems to be making a difference.

Property news has been frustrating. There should be a house in this picture on the right, but this is still what it looks like (but at least there was a nice sunrise!) We are waiting on the final permits and they have been sending us back with something to change over and over. We've submitted the final change they asked for, so we *should* have our permits any day now, but I'm not holding my breath.

I couldn't get a great picture, but all three animals were snuggling together the other day and it was just so sweet. We kind of can't believe that the guinea pigs are still holding on. They're both about 5.5 years old which is about as old as they get. We've already started talking about what we're going to have to do for Poppy when that day comes--she'll miss her piggy friends.

Pool time ended with some weird days--Bug's last day of lessons was totally raining. I showed up to swim laps during his break, but there was thunder and lightning, which is really weird for us.

Science classes have been going pretty well. Chemistry is a fun topic with some good labs we get to do this year and a lot of the kids are pretty into it. (and shh. . . don't tell anyone, but I have a couple favorite classes for sure--it's just so nice when they can follow directions and really seem interested in what we're doing.)

Nature hikes have also been fun. We've got a smaller core group this year, but the families are a lot of fun.

We're revisiting some of my favorite topics since none of my current families were around when I first started. So we learned about woodpeckers and returned to the redwoods.

The banana slugs there were a hit. And I had to laugh, but also felt really legit when a random hiker stopped to listed to me when I was talking about the redwood root networks with my group.

I went to see the movie release of the new Taylor Swift album. After missing out on the Eras tour and regretting it, I decided I wasn't going to take any chances. I'm loving the new album, and it was fun to see the making of the music video.

And in other music news, Peanut and I went to the symphony at Temple Hill in Oakland for the Star Wars night.

The music was great and we got to watch a friend from church in her inaugural night as the conductor. 

It was fun meeting up with homeschool friends and pretending that we're still living that life. I think that once you're a homeschooler, you're always a homeschooler.

And finally, I got out for a hike after dropping Peanut off for his Ranger Explorers day today. 

It was a gorgeous morning and I did the new trail which has some incredible views. Also got to hike with deer, watch a white-tailed kite hovering and diving for food, and a red-shouldered hawk take off with a gopher in its talons! All in all, it was a really great hike and I still had time to spend the rest of the day with gimpy Daddy-o ;)

 

Property Update

It's been awhile since I updated about the property. And honestly, the last few months have been slow progress. But I think we've done a lot since the last time I posted about it. 

We spent last summer and early fall clearing out all of these buildings so we could tear them down.

There were so many sheds and barns just full of junk, and occasionally things that might be valuable (to someone--mostly not us.)

So we pulled everything out, with the help of several friends who put in a lot of hours over there. 

We have one kid from our church who loves recycling metal, so he came with his dad most weekends we were over there, and they hauled off several thousand dollars' worth of scraps. 

Peanut and another friend got in on the work after a couple of weeks, so they started splitting the proceeds.

And then, we had another guy come in with his backhoe and tear down the buildings. Above is a look at the same area--before and then with the red barn gone. 

The blue lab on the right also was destroyed (after I made a serious effort to give it away on Facebook. It ended up getting flagged after so many comments about meth labs and Breaking Bad, and we didn't have any takers. Pretty sure it was never used as a meth lab, just a storage place for a hoarder to keep more stuff.)

This small building was actually picked up by someone and taken away--it was in pretty good condition and small enough to move easily.

This was what it looked like with all the buildings still there.

We had two large barns (front)

and now have an open shot to the back field.

(Barns from the back)

No more barns in the back.

Two large-ish portable buildings,

and a couple smaller sheds which had to all be removed before we could apply for the permits for our new septic system and ADU. 

We got that all done before we took off for our fall trip and then they supposedly started working on permits. 

And we generated five 40-foot dumpsters full of garbage.

And a huge pile of e-waste that we are still working our way through.

It's a slow process and things didn't really get done until after we got back, and of course new requirements popped up that we didn't know anything about. But now, as we have passed the year mark of owning this property, we think we are finally permitted to begin the building. Hoping they can schedule the septic work to begin here very soon.

This spot on the right side of our back area is where the new pre-fabricated house will go. We picked everything out for it a few months ago and it's actually already built, sitting in a warehouse, ready to be installed on the property as soon as we have the foundation poured and everything hooked up for sewer, electrical, and water. Crossing our fingers that we'll be able to move in there by the end of the summer and get the barn built around the same time.

It's going to go on the other side of the yard, a little farther back from the house.

And in the meantime, we can finish clearing out everything that is left in the second house and the piles around what we've already destroyed. Eventually, all of these houses will also come down and we'll get the main house built, pretty much right where the original two buildings are now. I have no real estimate of how long that will take, but considering how long this has all been, I feel like we're looking at 3 or 4 years before we may be "done." And are you ever done with these things? But it will be done enough when I can sit on the porch with the ceiling fan going and watch the sunset. Or host dinner out on our back patio and not see any garbage in the backyard, haha.

Property Work

We got a container and dumpster delivered to the property and have been over there working a couple of different days now.

Dumpster just waiting for all the garbage, and there is plenty!

Our work space, before. . .

Just a little of the buildings we need to clear.

We've had friends join us--some collecting metal for recycling, some helping to haul all of the things that are filling each building.

And the yard is getting full of stuff.

Lots and lots of stuff.

Some of the coolest finds are the skeletons we're finding around. We have 3 skulls, a jawbone, and a whole carcass of something small. Those are honestly the only things I personally have wanted to keep--it's all so gross that even things that should have been nice aren't anymore. Hoarding is sad--such a waste of space and things.