Excitement level: fevered pitch.

Excitement level: fevered pitch. Progress: whiplash speed. Buzz: never-ending.
And that is not ALL due to the cabinet man's speedy recovery from the flu. Stuff is happening. I'll have some pictures in a day or two. Cabinets are looking awesome. I will be surrounded by smartness and splendor for the first time in many, many years......cabinet-wise, I mean. Some of the windows have gotten an eyebrow treatment, never previously duplicated in this civilization, to facilitate proper rain management. Three square light fixtures and a porch light have been installed. Berms and landscaping are being passionately discussed. A conservation agent has been contacted. Kitchen appliances have been selected and purchased.
Most of the plumbing fixtures have been tested successfully. The heat works. The air-conditioning works. Ditches have been dug with top-of-the-line rental equipment. Conduit has been laid that would rival the Alaskan pipeline. The propane man is poised and ready for action. And did I mention THE RAMP? Oh, baby. Am I going to have A RAMP! One of my thoughts for the house design has always been to make it barrier-free. Any one of us could stumble into one of those ditches or become disabled by a fall on the dance floor at any moment; and I, for one, certainly want to be able to operate any type of mobility aid throughout the house without worrying about narrow doors or a flight of stairs......and make that a possibility for any visitors. And what A RAMP! By the time it's finished, the house may appear to be merely an afterthought. There's not a convention center or an opera house in town that has A RAMP like this one. Keep your eyes on this space for more pictures.....and more progress.

This blog page entitled "Whadya do when the cabinet guy shows up complaining of the flu?" has been deleted....due to inappropriateness of material.

Lights.....camera.....a little more action to report.....

Lights.....camera.....a little more action to report. I thought I'd better check things out, after work on Friday......but didn't expect to see LIGHTS inside the house! Now, that's ACTION. Not all of the lights are in, but the few that Michael has hooked up are making all the difference in the world. It's starting to look very civilized and genteel......if you overlook the table saw in the living room and a few other construction accessories. The storage/shelter container has been lifted onto the piers and is now where it belongs. Jason has installed, but not finished the translucent wall that separates my bedroom and bathroom. The plumbing fixtures are nearly in place. And when I walked in the door last night, there was MUSIC coming from the speakers that Gabe installed. What else do you need?

It's "taking a village", alright......

It's "taking a village", alright.....if a person were to collect the names of all of the people SO FAR who have been involved in this project, it would definitely look like it belongs in the Ozarks. Friends, neighbors, hired hands, true professionals, blood relatives, in-laws, consultants, prospective clients, students, passers-by, droppers-in, tourists, dogs.....and a story behind every one of them, if you had the time and the inclination.

I was out at the house on Sunday and thought I'd do some serious picture-taking for a blog update......but, I was getting in the way of progress (On Sunday? People working? Yes, if you happen to be related to someone.....and were helping on your day off...) so I came on home.

Meanwhile, I'll give you a brief update. As you may have noticed, a great deal of trash had accumulated on the building site, including four of the shipping container sections that had been cut out and had fallen down the hill. There were also several dead trees lying around and one that was too close to the container to be safe or practical. My friend and landlord Ken Richardson was hired to get the trash shoved into one pile and out of the way, to cut and remove some of the dead trees and to retrieve the container panels from the hill. So, Sunday before last, he brought his new Kubota tractor and his ninety-one-year-old dad Loyd to get the job done. Quite the crew, eh? A 55-year-old, a 65 year-old, a 91-year-old and thankfully, no dogs. That was about an eight hour operation, with time to sit on some overturned buckets to eat lunch, and an unforgettably impressive experience to watch how Ken and his dad work together and know exactly where to put the chains, where the tractor needs to go, where to attach the "come-along", how to use the pry bar to guide the tree or the metal that was being pulled, which wood was good for what.......and enough energy and humor for conversation and philosophy and a couple of Loyd's famous jokes. That was a day I will always remember and appreciate. And it wore me slick.

Michael created a beautiful concrete pad on which has been installed an air conditioning unit.....Jason finished the piers for the storage container to be installed on Thursday (WITH A CRANE!!!!).....the pier that will support the ramp that goes from the house to the ground by the storage container/car port is now in place.......Michael and the plumber have been at work in the crawl space getting it ready for a pump and hot water heaters (which could not have been a fun job).... sinks have been installed in the two bathrooms......toilets are there and almost installed....Jason is getting ready to put up the translucent panels that will separate the bathroom and my bedroom...the furnace is in place.....Gabe installed the speakers and did a final check before the phone guy and the electrician come....more people have been out to check on the progress......and I'm back at work and no longer able to spend the whole day standing in the future living room, looking at that river and trying to decide between lawn chair, kayak or inner tube. It's tough.

paint + cedar = a fist pump.

A "Whiter Shade of Pale"......nearly primed and ready...

A "Whiter Shade of Pale"....nearly primed and ready....and in one of my favorite colors (other than Black Fox)....."Pure White". That will be the color of the walls and of the container ceilings in the areas which don't have cedar-wrapped ceilings. Pure as the driven snow.

Jason and Michael have been taping and papering the windows and floor and using a newly acquired Craig's List paint sprayer to let 'er rip with the primer and paint.

The pictures seem a bit puny.....not nearly as exciting as sheetrockers on stilts or sparks from a plasma cutter....but definitely another step closer to "happily ever after" and a realization (with the pictures of the spider, the moth and the butterfly) that almost every phase of this operation has been accompanied by some form of flora or fauna. And I'm not just talking poison ivy, ticks, and good-looking, intelligent, hard-working men.

And, speaking of flora and fauna, we've certainly seen the seasons change during this building experience...and I don't mean that facetiously......I mean that in a reflective way. Having the crane deposit the containers on that cold day in January...driving through snow and ice to take pictures and check on things....watching the river rise to flood stage after detouring around the closed roads...seeing the red bud trees blooming where I didn't know there were any...pulling up to the house to see the same rabbit over and over again...hearing about the eagle who visited a nearby tree a few times when the framing was going up....blue heron from the nearby rookery squawking back and forth....the weeds and stinging nettle that keep growing in the path down to the river.....the search for relics around the house after the bulldozer was there....an owl in the afternoons when all is quiet....those baby wrens Michael rescued from the air vent.....the gigantic black snake that inched up the gigantic tree....eating lunch on the gravel bar and feeding Cheetos to the minnows and fish (who now EXPECT me)......watching a lowly armadillo root around the house site.

And the joys of hearing what other people have discovered and told about on their trips to check on the house......a bobcat sighting at the end of the driveway.....the lunar moth that was pointed out by friends who noticed it sitting on the window sill....nor would I have noticed the swallow- tail zebra butterfly without the help of a trained professional....much less known what it was called.

Not exactly what I'm used to here in the middle of Springfield. Practically all of my flora here was planted by a friend (who was appalled by the fact that I refused to have even a house plant) while I was away for a weekend....lots of mint, lots of horsetail, a very few flowers and the stupid yard that always needs mowing. As for fauna, that's mostly squirrels, stray cats, dogs on leashes, some real good neighbors, MSU field hockey team girls across the street, and a low-cost, record-breaking, watch-'em-grow, thrill-a-minute year for ants. And that's about it for the urban life.

What was my point here? Maybe that a person can start out talking about primer and pure white paint, can have a Procol Harem flashback, know people who are smart enough to find a bargain paint sprayer on Craig's List and download photos on a blog, but........you always need to keep your eyes and ears open to the world around you.....and watch where you step.

****Footnote: According to my hyper-research, Luna moth adults "do not eat or have mouths....emerge as adults, solely to mate....and as such, only live approximately one week.....and are more commonly seen at night."

That'll make you think.