In which Thor and I return from vacation to piles of lumber for framing our new home, plus a huge dirt pile with an excavator on top.
NOTE: People have been asking to follow our progress as Thor and I pursue our quest for our dream home with sunsets over the Salish Sea. So starting with my post of 5/21/22, we set out.
The day after our two-day journey home from SE Yucatan — a wonderful getaway at our honeymoon paradise, with snorkeling every day right off our nearly-deserted beach — Thor and I and Bear dog couldn’t wait to drive to our building site to see what progress had been made in our absence. Piles of lumber awaited the start of framing the house, while a huge mound of dirt with an excavator on top posed a mystery.
Our builder, Meshak Drew, met us at the site two days later and explained that the framers would start that day, while excavation for the expansive drainage system would also begin. The big dirt pile would eventually be spread over the rough ground sloping toward the road.
Our permit — and common sense — requires a large pipe that will capture excess rainfall across the lot and funnel it down over the bank to a catchment area of chunky gravel above mean high tide. Last fall, while we were in the process of obtaining the lease from DNR for out lot, our Whatcom County experienced catastrophic floods from an “atmospheric river.” Runoff from the extensive acreage across the road, clear-cut 15 years earlier by our notorious Trillium Corporation, had created a torrent down our driveway that took out a chunk of the high bank over the beach. We all want to prevent that from recurring!
Here was the ladder reaching partway down the steep bank, ready for action.
This ditch stretching across the front of the lot will be a curtain drain, filled with gravel and a pipe to capture excess water and send to the other pipe down the bank.
Here the lengths of piping are installed down the bank. Meshak is down there to make sure of the next step…
The next step was a crew loading the rough gravel into the top of the pipe. Many loads went rattling down the pipe, as Meshak reported from below.
It was exciting to see the framing of the house started! The first-floor level will be slightly above this first layer of framing, giving us a nice height for the sea view.
Bear dog was more interested in a chewy chunk of root that had been exposed.
Between visits, we took Bear dog for a walk in the nearby Rambles, with Mt. Baker in the distance. We are enjoying our new neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Turtle cat has camped out in Thor’s unpacked luggage and refuses to let us take another trip.
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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and a Pulpwood Queens International Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
