Guest post by Stephen Cowan

The beginning stages of building a house involves digging up a lot of dirt and hiding stuff in the ground.  It is sort of like buried treasure, except whoever digs up the stuff in 200 years will find septic systems and pipes instead of gold.  We have dug holes for septic tanks, ditches leach fields, culverts for drainage, trenches for pipes full of wire, and other holes just so someone from the county could stand in them.  Sometimes we will dig a trench, move the dirt out of the trench, then move the dirt back in the trench, and then realize something is wrong in the trench, then dig the dirt out again, then put the dirt back in.  I keep hoping with all the dirt we have moved, to find something interesting or historical beneath the surface, but we only find more dirt underneath the dirt.

Here are some examples:

After many months of planning and preperation, the pace of building is finally starting to accelerate.  It has taken a while to hire the right contractors, and we have waited patiently while they finish work on other projects.  One thing we have learned about new construction is to not expect to have work done on our timetable.  We have been dreaming and looking forward to this new house for so long, it has been hard to have the patience for delays.  However, these last few weeks we have been lucky to have our main contractors work several weeks in a row and a lot has been accomplished.  Framing started a couple of weeks ago.

We were able to have our first picnic at the house, and introduced our 2 month old son to his future home for the first time.  He enjoyed it for a while, lying down and looking up at the trees, then went berserk when Daddy picked him up.  Luckily, there were other arms to pass him onto.

This week has been busy with sheathing the walls, putting in thousands of nails, and preparing the beams for installation on the roof.

With a little luck, we will begin our life full-time at the ranch by the end of summer!