$8000 and a couple of holes in the ground later

This has been a fairly productive week.

HOUSE-PLAN: Last Saturday, March 20th, we met with Hyrum in the morning. We got the second-to-last bunch of papers from him, with the rear and side elevations. He'll call us in about 2 weeks (one week from now) and then we'll pick the final house-plan. And we'll give him his final payment of $1200.00. It has been a little more expensive hiring him as opposed to picking out a house plan on the internet, but I am so, so glad we did hire him. I'm so happy with what we've come up with and we couldn't have found one we liked as well. And we tried! Oh, we tried. We looked at thousands of plans. No exaggeration. He has done a terrific job and was really great to work with.

GUESS-TI-BID: Also last Saturday, we met with a prospective contractor, who gave us a preliminary approximate bid on our home. The bid was based solely on some jpegs of the house-plan without the exact specs or rear or side elevations. Anyway, it was a little depressing. It really sent Mike into a funk and he actually woke up sick the next day. We tried to console ourselves into thinking it would be less, considering some of the finishes that were bid were much more expensive than we'd choose. (Solid stain-grade doors inside, granite in the bathrooms . . .) We'll have to make many decisions regarding the finishes we want ("need") and then, along with the accurate, engineered plans, we can get the final bids.

We really like this contractor and he's charging a good rate for his contractor percentage, so we'll see how all the final bids come in.

WELL: Met with our well-driller on Monday and signed the contract. Wednesday, his drilling truck was in the middle of the driveway. Apparently there had been a fire somewhere in his engine, or something. Thursday morning, he moved further in to the property (and off the driveway) and along with our neighbor Sean, started work on the well. Mike, Ellie, Charlie and I all stood around in the shallow snow watching Sean dig a deep hole. (Charlie can't stand yet, actually. He was all bundled up in his jogging stroller.) It was so exciting to see something physical happening. He dug a 20+ feet deep hole, they positioned a pipe in it, then filled the dirt back in around it. They use the pipe as a guide to ensure the drilling goes straight down.

So this is the second of two holes referenced. The first was the perc hole dug last year around this time. Both holes are now filled in. So, actually, we don't even have two holes in the ground. But we have a pipe! And, yes, we've spent about $8000 and that's all we have to show for it. I had heard about death-by-fees. It is slow and painful.

His truck is still sitting there. Mike said he plans to tow it out to the spot and work on the carborator (or something) while he's drilling. He'll have us give him the initial chunk of money once they are positioned. ($5000.00) When all is done, it will cost us $12-16K. That, and we get to pay the state $280.00 per year to draw water from our own well. And they'll monitor us occasionally to check that we're not drawing more than our allowance. Nice. Ahhh, well. The water tastes great!

We've been taking pictures daily (or whenever we remember) from marked spots on the lot so that we can track the progress. We really love our spot. It has trees in front and in back, and horse-fields on the East. It is exciting. Also a little scary. Mostly exciting.