Can Do Cottage, 2nd Installment

Since we got our Sanitary Certificate, we haven't been idle. For a move on house, you pour concrete footings, then move the house on over them, build a cement block foundation and then lower the house onto the foundation.  Oh, but first, we bought the house. We had verbally agreed to purchase the house. The owner/house  mover had checked out our lot and confirmed that it was possible to move the house on. (Not every lot is feasible.) Once we got our "go ahead" from the county we could then sign a contract.  We're paying $14,000 for the house, set on a foundation (which we will supply). For now we pay only $5000 deposit. The rest will be paid when the house is delivered and we hold the large amount of iron holding the house up hostage until the house is installed and leveled on it's foundation. If you're confused, follow along and you'll see.

The house mover, sent us a detailed "footprint" of the house. We had also measured it and drew it out on graph paper. This helps us to know the exact dimensions of the foundation.  Everyone met at the lot and the foundation contractors measured and strung line between posts (look close) so they had the exact position of the outline of the house and the interior piers that will hold up the interior.

They came the next day with this cute little Bobcat and dug neat straight trenches right where the foundation will go. In our climate (no frozen ground) 18 inches is deep enough for footings.

The trenches get filled with a crosshatch of steel re-bar. This keeps the concrete all together and strong.

They smoothed out the dug out dirt and called it a day. Next day, concrete!

Bearing the Unbearable

It's been a full, full week. The Best Loved Family has been transplanted Arkansans for nearly 20 years. In all that time we've been members of the Benton Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've come to love this group of people and in this congregation we've watched our children and our friend's children go from diapers to adulthood. Today we, and about eight hundred others buried our friends 22 year old daughter, Alesa. We are a lay church and her father serves us currently as our Bishop. She was a missionary for our church, assigned to the Oklahoma City Mission and she was "posted" to a small town in north west Oklahoma. In a sad accident, she was struck by a pickup truck last Friday night while walking her bike and died on site.

On Saturday, the word spread through the Ward. We were in Home Depot, buying kitchen cabinets when we heard. It seemed strange to be doing something so mundane. She was the same age as our youngest boy. In a weird fluke, they were the only ones in the Ward  the same age and were always in the same classes.  Her family had four girls and then finally a boy. We had three girls and three boys. We always joked that we wanted one of their girls for a daughter-in-law.  In truth, if we lived in a different society we would have sent the baba to their house to negotiate. We would have had to bring quite a few goats, and at least one cow as we wouldn't have been the only ones.  When our youngest son was about 9, only half in jest we said that it looked like our older sons weren't going for the older Smith sisters, so our baby boy would have to marry Alesa. "I don't want to marry Alesa" he said, "she hits me with her scriptures in Sunday School". I'm sure he deserved it.

We "Mormons" love our missionaries. There are 60,000 world wide. Many of our children serve 18 months or 2 years at their own expense and are assigned all over the world. We feed dinner to the ones that are assigned to our area and greet any we find wherever we go (and buy them dinner) just like they are our own kids, because in a real way, they could be. Even so, I was amazed by the outpouring and support from our entire 14 million church membership. Elder W. Craig Zwick, a General Authority of our church, was sent  from Church headquarters to preside and speak at the service. The accident has been front page on Church news and websites. For us, this was a big deal, but to our congregation Alesa was our own beautiful girl. Her parents and siblings our dear friends. In spite of great faith, our grief is great and her family's even greater.

We have a scripture:
"Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious Resurrection. And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them. " D&C 42:45, 46
There's been a lot of love, and weeping. 

On the Worktable

My worktable looks a bit disjointed, but I feel like I'm getting some things done.

The table has spilled over to the dining table, too.

Sneak peak. These are new elephant bookends. Hope to get them posted in the next couple of days.

Before You Can Even Think About Building

Before you can even think of building (or in our case moving a house on to the property) there's a whole lot of "stuff" you have to do. We live in a rural county area of central Arkansas and compared to most communities we have few building codes and regulations. Some neighborhoods and developments have Codes, Covenants and Restrictions (CC&R's) that regulate building. We live in a development called Maple Creek Farms and some of our CC&R's prohibit a mobile home (regardless of size or type), prohibit pig farming :), require a house to be a single family residence and say that homes must be at least 1000 sq ft in size. I know of a development that requires you to build a brick home with a Mansard roof. The lot we bought for the Can Do Cottage in an unrestricted area. No CC&R's. Really the only regulations in this area are concerning sewage. What happens when we flush can effect the entire community's health and well being so the state and county have rules. You cannot move a house (or trailer or mobile home) onto a property nor can you get a water district to put in a meter and hook up water to your dwelling without a Sanitary Certificate from the county. What's that, and how do you get one?

A Sanitary Certificate is a permit with specific directions to install a septic tank and field. Our favorite septic tank installer and a civil engineer meet at the property to determine if and how a septic system can be installed. The septic tank installer came with a big fancy backhoe. (I'm sorry I didn't get his picture but he'll be back in a month or so.)  They have to know the size of the house. In our county, a house 1500 sq ft or less is in a different category, and takes a smaller system than a larger house. Fortunately, our project is going to be a little over 1100 sq ft. I think it's interesting that the size of the system is the size of the house, not how many bedrooms, bathrooms or people will be involved. When the BL daughter bought a home in New Hampshire the determining factor for septic size was number of bedrooms, so they looked at quite a few homes that had strange rooms that couldn't be called a bedroom because the septic system was rated for only 3 bedrooms and the 4th room was a "bonus" area. I know from sad experience that when you move into a house with 4 teenagers and a mountain of laundry when the former occupant was a single man the septic system knows the difference.

Holes were dug in several places and the engineer and installer worked together to determine where things would go. They spoke a foreign language. I could catch a few words and phrases like "gray layers" and "I wouldn't believe there was any clay", but mostly I had no idea what they were talking about. To my surprise, they needed to find a place to put not one, but TWO septic systems. The 2nd system is a back-up. The first is supposed to last at least 35 years (they told me it would last for 60 years in our soil) but should it quit working there has to be an alternate plan. There are more strict regulations the smaller the property. We are subdividing the lot we bought so we can put more than one house. The lot the Can Do Cottage will be on is going to be a bit over 0.6 acres. If we lived in back in So California this size lot would support a 3000 ft home, a large horse barn, a swimming pool, 3 horses and some goats! Here in Central Arkansas it's just a modest little yard.  Luckily, they were able to work out a plan on the lot size we wanted. This plan also tells us where the house has to sit. There are regulations on how far away the tanks, distribution boxes and outlets are from the house and the property lines.You can't have driveways or parking on the drain fields. Our lot is on a small hill and water (and what's in it) all flows downhill, so the drain fields will be in the front yard.  

Look close, flags show the whole layout

They marked everything with small flags. They filled in some of the holes but left several open for inspection by the county. The engineer submits a report and files a request with the county who sends an inspector out to double check and then, usually, grants you a permit to build a septic system. Two weeks later, we had our permit in hand.  

This project is now real.  What did it cost? The Civil Engineer's fee was $350. We paid the septic installer $150 to dig the test trenches and consult (this is low but he does it for this if you are going to use him to install the system, and we are). Then we needed to give the Engineer $30 for the County Fee.   We're at $530 + land. More to come. 

The Can Do Cottage

The Best Loved Household has been busy. Not only do I have a bunch of stuff on the work table but BL Hubby and I bought a house! Look, isn't she cute. 

Not so much? She will be. This little 2 bedroom 1 bath bungalow was on the campus of a church where it may at one time have been a minister's house. The church wanted to expand so it was moved and is now going to go on our property.  Before we could finalize the sale and get it moved, there is a whole lot of stuff that has to happen.

Why? We've saved a bit of our income regularly for the last 22 years and as we look at retirement (we still have some time) the money we've saved is making nothing sitting in our retirement account. We don't have the stomach for anything that will risk our principal any MIGHT make a little more. We have one rental/investment property that makes about 5% on investment (that's conservative) so we really want to put our retirement money into more rental units.  Last year we bought a piece of property and had located a house to move onto it, but, BL Hubs had some surgery and we waited. Now he found this little cutie and we're ready to get to it!  I'm going to keep track on the blog of everything we're doing. Check in next for all the hilarity. 

New York Review - Mud Pies and Other Recipes

I must have been living under a rock not to have know anything about the New York Review of Books children's books.  They are a literary review but publish several collections of notable but out of print or not in English books. For their Children's List they have published over sixty out of print books that that they feel deserve to be rediscovered by a modern audience. They not only bring these back into print but the editions themselves are beautiful. Really nice paper and sturdy bindings and the pictures are in beautiful colors. I've bought some reprints of wonderful old books only to find that they that look like poor photocopies.
I already told you about Wolf Story.  With some much loved gift cards to Amazon I got another title from the New York Review Children's Collection. This title is one I remember from childhood.

Mud Pies and Other Recipes by Marjorie Winslow

Marjorie Winslow was a magazine editor and author and involved in several business ventures in her life but published this one children's book in 1961. In my research into who the author was I found her recent obituary.

I first found this book in the library when I was about 8 or 9.  Even though I was rather young I appreciated the tongue in cheek humor. The recipes for "Pie Throwing Pies" or "Fried Water" tickled my funny bone then and continue to delight. I actually followed her directions for "Back Yard Stew" and paced off an eight step square and remember trying to find as many different bits of flora as possible to put in the "stew".  Rereading this as an adult, it strikes me that it assumes children have access to the outdoors (and not just overly groomed and manicured yard) and plenty of free time. Both I think are necessary for a healthy and happy kiddlet. A dirty child is a happy child!

I've decided to review as many of the New York Times Children's List as I can this year.  This list is huge and they keep adding to it. I'm off to try to choose the next ones.

Back To Normal

I'm having trouble getting back into "normal" since coming home from the epic trek that was our holidays.  These dear folks were celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary.  In Southern California.  They were married the day after Christmas. As many as their descendants as possible came to celebrate Dec 27.

On the way to celebrate we stopped in Utah for Christmas with these kiddlets and their parental units and some of our own BL Grown Kids.

We had the best time. Huge thanks to the  BestLovedDaughter-in-law's family for including us in their Christmas Eve Bash. Two kinds of turkey, more pies than you could shake a stick at, fried artichoke hearts and homemade root beer. So much fun when three families, united by our kids, get together from New York, Arkansas and Utah.  Then wonderful Christmas morn. It is best with kids that believe.

We took off Christmas evening to rescue the BL Baby Boy who never made it to Utah but got stranded in Vegas. Nothing like a car trip with your bachelor sons. Lots of uninterrupted time with  grown kids is the best thing ever. Doesn't happen enough now they're grown and flown. 

My sisters shouldered the party and hosting tasks in California.  Sandy found the best beach.  Aliso Creek County Beach on the south end of Laguna Beach area was perfect. Mom and Dad love the beach but need easy access. There was metered parking right next to fire rings. Bathrooms were close and no steps or stairs. Plus, it's cozy with rocks, tide pools and great sand. It was such a beautiful day. Lots of sand was consumed with hot dogs and my brother's amazing home made shortbread and gingerbread.

We broke camp mid afternoon to dash back over the hill to change into party clothes for a great dinner together. (Huge thanks to Sis Carol). Sister Sandy had a fancy cake made (did you know that your 60th Anniversary is the Diamond Anniversary?) and made festive party crackers! Some had questions for Mom and Dad or prompts for us to tell stories about them.  Sadly, no one's pictures seem to have turned out. After putting our bachelor boys on the plane for their homes we had a last get together at my Sis's the next morning before everyone started for home.

 My parents raised 7 kids and we are all over the country (San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California, Pullman, WA, Wisconsin, Utah, Chicago and Arkansas). 5 of the 7 were able to make the trip and a few of the grands and great grands.

Our friends had let us know that Arkansas had been hit with 8 to 12 inches of snow and ice Christmas evening and our whole neighborhood was out of power (as was most of central Arkansas). We had been following the power situation and felt no need to hurry home to freeze so we took the scenic route. We've always passed by the turn off on I-40 to go to the Grand Canyon cause we had deadlines, etc. so we decided to check that National Park off our Bucket List.

In the spirit of always passing the tourist attractions by, we stopped at the Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo, TX. We've always seen the billboards and this is the place of Food Network and Discovery Chanel fame where you can get your meal free if you eat a 72oz steak with shrimp, rolls and salad in one hour. No one was taking on the challenge while we were there but the steak was great and now we've been!

 Power was restored at our house Saturday evening (we kept calling our home number - when the answering machine picked up we knew the power was back on) and we came home Sunday afternoon.  Cleaned out fridge of spoiled food but big freezer in garage kept everything frozen just fine.  Now time to clean house from the neglect the ensued while I handled the holiday rush. Real Life, bring it on!