1239.50 and We'll Be In By September

Tuesday before last, we traded a doodle-ridden, coffee-stained, meticulously completed checklist atop a set of engineer-stamped building plans and check for $1239.50 for our building permit.

$1239.50. Does that seem like a lot for a building permit to you?

Once I regained consciousness, the cowboy shirted gal at the front desk assured us that everyone paid that amount. We didn't believe her but in lieu of pissing off anyone at the county building department, handed her a check.


PICKING UP OUR BUILDING PERMIT.

Sounds easy and it may have been if the checklist wouldn't have had things like:

1. Proof of site's potable water source.

In our case that meant
a. find and hire a well driller for our Washington project while we were living in Vermont
b. have the well guy drill the well in Washington while we were living in Vermont wondering "Couldn't well people just dig as far as they wanted and no one would know?"
c. have the well guy tell Vince were at 440 feet and still hadn't hit water while we were living in Vermont. I was walking Max down the road and heard Vince tell them they had to hit water (Vince was in the house) and 40 feet later the hit 100 gallons a minute.
d. get water sample out of the well to send a water sample tester
e. figure out to whom the water test results were sent by mistake

here's another one:

2. Approved septic system design.

In our case that meant
a. find someone to dig the holes for the perc test
b. arrange to have the county board of health engineer at the site while the holes were being dug to do the test
c. send a detailed map to the excavator to make sure he digs the test holes in the right place
d. fly from Vermont to Washington to be there when the excavator re-digs the holes and the county board of health engineer re-does the perc test. (they'd read our detailed map wrong...upside down, I think....and the first test was 180 degrees off)
e. wait in the field with, while paying, the excavator. The county board of health engineer forgot about our confirmed appointment and never showed up.
f. fly back to Vermont without a perc test....

Anyway, the whole checklist had those kind of 'where do I start' line items.

In any case, we now have....
• footings
• a board formed foundation that is insulated and partly backfilled (our concrete guy looks like Ron Howard's brother)
• a driveway that is excavated and mostly graveled (Vince did the excavation in his free time)
• an approved septic system
• a pole and buried electric line
photos top to bottom...

See? In by September.

Just Another Day Again

Newport is the Pend Oreille County seat and where you go to pick up your building permits. So. We drove the sixty miles to Newport this morning thinking we'd be driving back to our tent with our permit but instead we drove back with a new bath towel and a new broom. Even though it was nice to bring home the towel and the broom we would rather have brought home a building permit. So far it's been pretty easy to substitute a t-shirt for a towel and ignore the dirt and dog hair but there is no substitute for a building permit. Maybe Friday.

To me our little house is so simple and sweet but to the permitting office it's one big heavy gray area that keeps sinking to the bottom of the pile on the inspector's desk. It sort of reminded me of when we applied for a credit line during our VOmax years because I'd read somewhere that if you were a business you had to have a credit line. Since we didn't owe any money there was no formula that we could be plugged into and we were never able to get a credit line which was fine because we never needed one. Anyway. We got our plans back with sloppy red letters screaming we needed several pages stamped by an engineer. We found an engineer in our new phonebook who said that, based on the phone conversation we were having, it sounded like we'd be able to walk over and wait while he looked the plans over, approved and stamped them. We hung up and walked to the engineers office with bounces in our steps. We shook hands and confidently handed him our plans. I watched the color drain from his lips as he slowly and noisily turned from one page of the plan to the next. I'd been sure after seeing his office full of books, diplomas and charts with numbers he'd be able to plug our plans into some sort of calculator but instead he asked us if we could come back day after tomorrow. Shoot.

I guess we can wait until Friday. The electric company might come then too so it could be a really big day.

I look forward to bed under the down comforter covering a pad on the floor of the tent. Forty-four degrees should feel uncomfortable to me right now but I love the way it feels. Digesting the sesame broccoli brown rice and tofu cooked in a wok over a Coleman stove with light from the full moon supplemented by a lantern I feel really really alive. Who wouldn't be totally content being me right now? Probably most people.

Max the Dog

Max, unassuming as he is, has already become a Metaline Falls village-character. Yesterday the neighbor's chubby lab popped in for a visit and yada-yada, Max ended up leashed to the new tent platform wondering why he was being punished for just doing what he was supposed to be doing.

He takes his new appointment of guarding our field and river very seriously and is exhausted at the end of each day. Guarding a river is a big job and most days he comes home and goes right to bed after supper.

Despite Max thinking he should be the only living non-human in the field, the elk, moose, bald eagles*, deer, turkeys and loons still stop by everyday. Max is big but not compared to a moose or an elk and since loons and eagles can fly they continue to hang around unintimidated. I think they think Max is temporary but it's hard to know fore sure what a wild animal is thinking.

* a bald eagle's nest is HUGE and we're flattered that these eagle's have chosen one of our trees as home. I think they probably like the view into Canada....here I go trying to read the mind of a wild animal again.

Moving Forward Sort Of

80 degrees. Dry. NO BUGS. The grass in the field shimmers in waves with the breeze. 40's at night. Organic espresso at the grocery store and 'Terminator' at the movie theater where the owner converted the balcony of the old movie house into his apartment and shows the movies on the big screen below from his living room.

You'll find this post sort of 'messy all over the place' like the inside of my head these days. Being drenched in nature without electricity or running water while trying to incorporate and maintain outside connections is complicated and challenging.....but mostly really fun. Today I found out where they keep the phone books around here (at the phone company office...big surprise) and picked one up. Haircuts. Shoes. Fabric. Everything is right here if you have a phonebook. I feel like a kid doing one of those Highlights Magazine hidden pictures pages.

Just so you know, we have managed to get a few things done.

Windows. I faxed the signed window order and contract to the window store from the "Robinson Construction and Excavating" office using the fax number on the cover page that ended up being the fax number of the local library leftover from when it was faxed to me. I paid Robinson Construction and Excavating people the 5 dollars it cost to fax it to the library, another 5 dollars to fax it to the right place and now I'm headed over to the library to pay them for a fax of a window order that more than likely has the librarian really confused.

Digging. We figured we'd have some leverage in this catagory since nearly everyone has an excavator in their yard and we needed a septic system, foundation, backfilling and long driveway. We did get a few calls back but any leverage we may have had coming was offset by the description of the driveway as two tracks leaving grass in the middle.

Concrete. "Can you call me back, I'm at the casino?" hollered our 'hot' foundation guy lead before his phone went dead. Guess we wouldn't have wanted to give him any money up front. I don't know why we thought that getting subs would be such a snap. The stacks of quotes we'd imagined sorting through became finding someone who was willing to do the job. We did finally convince a concrete guy (not the one from the casino) to do our board formed foundation. He showed up yesterday while the hole was being dug and did something with a long ruler and shovel which makes me think he's serious. He's also cute but I may just think that because he's young and said he would do it.

Choosing to dig the foundation at our own risk without a permit,...we figured set-backs wouldn't be an issue in the middle of 54 acres.... the crew was digging and measuring when Vince and I left for Colville to pick up lumber to finish the shed. (the closest 2 x 6's are 50 mountain miles away) Taking advantage of being in a 'city', Vince ordered a 'veggie wrap' at the natural foods store next to the lumber yard. "Do you want chicken on that?" the cashier/cook with the Carhartt cap asked.

TaDa...we came home to a great big beautiful hole in the ground and I slept very well last night until Max realized there was a moose trying to get into the tent.

Wait until you see our impractical Dwell-worthy shed.