Let's build a house, it'll be fun!

So the home building continues in fits and starts.  When you consider that Brian hasn't taken time off from work, that for the most part we've done this by ourselves, with help from D and friend J, it's amazing how far we've come.

And then add two crazy dogs....

Fish and Luna, plus a little mud.

Fish found a frog, it's about 6 inches in front of his nose. 

Luna fell asleep mid play.

 

A lap dog

Our bathroom downstairs: the men's room

Bis building bird blocks.  The WORST job so far.

EQ putting in hurricane clips, for those windy days.

Tom has been awesome!  Such a hard worker.  

Yosef's favorite pet.  Not true - he hates spiders. This guy is too big for my comfort. 

A snake Seth promises is not poisonous.  

Our side yard.  

My favorite thing, my commercial sized sink!  Love craigslist.  

Yo and Man puttin' on the roof.  

All of this building is exhausting.

Hope you are all well.  We are continuing in this crazy life we've chosen and been dealt.

PS.  our chocolate boys have now been with us 5 years!! Holey Moley time flies. 

progress, and a turtle hunter, going raw

Seth made his own costume for Medieval Day at school; he did a great job!

Sub floor...check!  This will be our real floor, I'll sand it, fill it, stain it and poly it like a gym floor.  Brian is dubious, but I think it will look great and save a bundle of moohla. 

Walls, yeah.  Building them in 16 foot sections with the sheathing and everything,then setting them up and nailing them down. 

Fish finds lots of things on our walks.  After having found three turtles I thought he was on to a fourth when he found this snake!  Yikes it scared the whatsits out of me.  Seth says it's a Northern Water Snake, harmless other than causing heart attacks!  not really

 

A fine turtle example.  Fish gently picks them up and carries them around.  

Yosef in the front door.  Shut the Front Door Yo!

Our basement,  the walls are really tall even with the concrete pour.  

Luna loves her ball. 

I love Luna's wrinkles!

Note from Luna: My mom feeds me raw meaty bones.  Mom asks "would you feed a horse fish?  Nope, then why give a dog grain, or potatoes, or chick peas?  There ain't not chicken in chick peas folks!  So if you are going to feed your carnivore meat, feed it real meat."  Right on Mom!

I like a juice chaser on occasion. 

Happy weekend!

Mud

This has been a slow week on the house.  The weather turned, well it turned spring-like and rained like the dickens. 

The current view from our basement doorway.

The doorway of our basement!

This guy does not mind the rain.  I love how he's camouflaged.  

Our girl, Luna, following the sun on the squishy chair.  

Almost gone. 

Hoping for our concrete pour tomorrow so the basement door can go on, then we'll bring Fish home from boarding and save some moolah on that craziness.   We've built a kennel at the property but I want to be able to leave Fish in the basement if foul weather comes along; obviously we don't yet live at the property so he will be alone at night. 

What's a lunafish?

The latest Kropp is a bit fishy, Fischer to be exact.
We had planned to adopt Fish if he was still at the shelter when our house was finished, but his time was up.  This is the dog that I first worked with, the one labeled as crazy.  Crazy sounded like a good challenge to me.  After the first training session I was crazy, about this dog!

He has been at the shelter since last fall, and has been adopted out and returned three times; the last time the family took him home on Friday and were waiting in the parking lot with him Saturday morning.  Too much energy is the excuse people have used to bring him back.  I do understand too much energy, but he's about 15 months old, and he's a big dog, never had training, was picked up as a stray and spent months in the shelter.  What the heck do people expect?

We guess that he is spaniel, and perhaps St. Bernard.

This was Fish' first day out of the shelter.  We are having to board him as we can't have him here with the in law's; he has no house manners yet.  

 

This is after playing in the mud pools at our property, he loves the water, thus the name.

Meeting his little sister, Luna the lunatic biter.  

They played really well.  

Today I took Fish hiking.  He is a great dog, glad to have him in our family.

Walls and Easter, pups in tutus

Our basement walls and garage foundation walls went up in hours without a hitch! 

 

There was just this one hitch.  the flatbed truck with the panels sank down, way down.  Our excavator guy, Stephen, had to come out and use his BIG tractor to get the truck out.

Finished!  It only took about 7 hours.  

Luna says "Happy Easter"

May you realize the joy that is Christ, your ransom paid in full, that when our just God looks at you he it is through the lens of Christ and judges you worthy because of the price he paid. 

and now there is a hole

Blessed with amazing weather for our basement cavity dig.

Everyone pitching in to help prep the holes for our support beams, concrete truck was due that same morning.

Our PM, pet manipulator.  

The result of a long day at the job site.

Tomorrow our basement walls will be delivered and set up with a crane.  Wicked rain on Sunday made a horrible mess, and some of our dirt walls sloughed down a bit, hoping we will be okay for wall placement.

It is wonderful that our boys are all old enough to truly help build their home.

Tom was absent this weekend; he and his Aunt Kim ran the River to River 80 mile race!  Their team had 8 people, so everyone basically ran 10 miles, in 3 mile increments, leap frogging along.  They did great.  Tom rocked it!

falling squirrels

Today the weather was beautiful, suitable for our next mission launch:  Kropp Home 2014

Thursday the excavator will dig a 9 foot hole for our basement, the basement walls will arrive the following Tuesday and be put up with a crane!  That should be exciting.  For today we were cutting down trees and righting wrongs.

Our abode will go right close to the tree line, so we will get the shade in our hot hot summers, it gets hot here, like HOT!  The house faces westish.  

EQ showing his manly powers of tree moving.   There was a girl watching from next door, it is amazing how much harder the boys work when there is a girl watching. 

Tom and Yo double up for a log.

Seth considers catapulting this one, but EQ is in the way, again.  

Bis, Luna wrangler.

Luna, ball wrangler.

And the squirrels that rained from the sky.  In truth we chopped down a tree that had their nest in it.  Four little squirrels fell out of the nest, mama called the doctor and the doctor said...I digress.  Anyhow 4 were out and more were still in the nest!  Yikes, no wonder mom was not home.  We cut the top 8 feet off the tree, stood it up next to another tree, tied it with pink string, put the four babies into a planter bucket with grass, and shoved it up by the nest.  God willing the squirrel family will reunite!  

EQ and Luna in the sun after a long day of work.  EQ got a stick poked up his nose while hauling brush, it was a bloody mess.  I took a picture but will refrain from posting, unless I get requests....

Can't wait to post THE HOLE, and THE WALLS, and THE CRANE, and...enough!