What a Weekend!!

December 7, 2020

It is amazing how much we need people. During this pandemic, our family has been blessed with great health. We are all working our off-farm jobs and are able to be around people – masked and 6’ apart, of course. We do know, however, that we need social time to play and laugh with others. Everything has shifted to the impersonal as we worry others may give us the virus, or that we may have it-unknowingly-and pass it on to others. It is the sad reality of this virus. But we still have hope for the future!

This past weekend, we were blessed to be able to spend time with a group of young adults, our future leaders. Some of Nicholas’ friends came out to the farm to work and to play. Their energy was contagious and their work ethic was fantastic! We had a long list of projects and asked them to pick whichever they wanted to do, knowing each had different skill sets and time commitments. We were thrilled that they took on the most difficult projects! They removed the old HVAC ducts from the attic space, removed more of the old electrical wire, pulled hundreds of nails out of the ceiling joists, removed the floor tiles in the mudroom, removed excess framing, and help us correctly install some of the sub floor. They ended the evening by hanging out around a huge fire – burning rotted and scrap wood from the house. We are so grateful for their friendship and willingness to help us out!

Knowing it would be chilly in the house, Nicholas and John got the wood-stove cleaned out earlier in the week. What a game changer! There are still lots of drafts in the house, but the wood stove definately kept the chill off.

The work party Friday night set the stage for a full weekend working on the house. Both John and I had a renewed sense of excitement. By the end of the weekend, and after 2 trips to Menards and a trip to Harbor Freight Tools, we installed brand new black iron gas lines in the house. It was a huge project, including digging down 2 feet between the house and well-house and then drilling through concrete walls on both buildings. Even with an impact driver, it took a LOOONG time!

The area between the buildings where we dug holds quite a bit of water, which, unfortunately, seems to find its way in the crawlspace of the house. As we were digging, we discovered an old clogged pipe that was connected to the old gutters. We’ve decided that we will dig the pipe up, clean it out, and connect it to the drainage ditches we dug around the apple orchard last year. If our plan works, we will have less water in the house and a drier back yard. That’s an example of a project that was not on our radar that is now on the official To Do List!

The gas lines are supposed to be inspected with our building inspection next month, but since we need gas in our apartment for the heater, our gas company is going to come out tomorrow to inspect it. The installation went pretty smoothly, so we are confident it will pass and we can use our propane heater tomorrow (we’re using space heaters and electric blankets tonight).

This weekend was exactly what we needed to realize some serious momentum on our projects. It is great to cross things off the list and look forward to the week with excitement. Assuming the gas line passes inspection, we will finish permanently installing the sub floors and start framing in the bathrooms this week. An electrician is coming out on Wednesday. If he can move the electric panel this week, we will start wiring electricity throughout the house!

And, in case you missed our post on Facebook, the week before Thanksgiving, we finished reinforcing the roof joists and taking down the horizontal ceiling joists. The space looks so much bigger, and more ugly wood was taken out of the house (that’s what fed Friday’s bonfire). This is only one of the hundreds of things we have to be thankful for this year.