Well hello! I hope everyone is ready for the holiday season! I can’t believe it is that time of year already.  Things have been extremely busy at the Banner home. I am still working as much overtime as possible…  and then still have to manage to get out to the land for a few things.

***This is a boring paragraph about septic work. Feel free to skip and look at all the pictures as a better summary 🙂  **

The main focus out at the land has continued to be the septic. I didn’t realize there was a fair amount of work left on it.  I had asked my septic guy, Carl, to do the remaining pipe connections and to hook up the pump and all of that fun stuff. It took him a while but he finally finished that (mostly). Since these were plastic tanks the tops of them were collapsing a little bit. They are supposed to come factory installed with some support pillars but for some reason mine did not.  So I had the “privilege” this Friday of helping Carl install those pillars. I got to crawl down in the tanks and precariously jack up the roof a bit and put the pillars in place.  Fortunately, we pumped the water out of the tanks before starting that :).

After that was done I needed to backfill the tanks and fill them with water. If the tanks are not full of water and the hole they are sitting in fills up with water they can actually float away and break all of the exterior plumbing. There wasn’t time for all of that on Friday, so yesterday I went back up to the land for another round. It was raining but I still managed to do most of the backfill and fill up the tanks with water. I also put in a “drain” for the septic tank hole. Since the tanks are on a hill, on the low side, I cut a slot in the hill and filled it with gravel. This gravel drain should keep the septic tank hole from filling with water. This is just a secondary safety precaution to keep them from floating away.

While doing all this work I couldn’t help but notice that I have never seen so much mud! It was a huge mess the whole time.  I looked like I rolled around in it by the time I was done. And it is really nasty clay. It sticks to everything. At one point I came out of the shed and put my boots on the wrong feet cause they were so caked in mud I couldn’t tell which boot was which. It was “fun” to say the least :).  Unfortunately, the septic system is not totally finished. The “last” thing I need is to hook the septic tanks to the leach field. I got the trench dug but did not have any of the materials to make the connection. This means I need to try and get back up there one more time before it gets completely covered in snow. Hopefully the weather will hold out long enough … but I’m not sure it will. 

In addition to all of the septic work.. we were able to get our driveway graveled! This is really nice.. I had no problem getting my two wheel drive car in and out of the land yesterday.  That is a very welcomed change to be able to use the driveway even when wet. And to make matters even better.. the private road that we share.. was asphalted this fall! It is BEAUTIFUL. Only wish we could have done our driveway as well.

And for some exciting news… we bought a drone! We are hoping this will help us get some better shots and help us document the project at more/better angles. We are thinking we will set up some way points and have it fly around and take the same pictures over and over again throughout the build. Should be a fun way to document it. Karianne has been designated the pilot and she’s excited to take that on! I’ve included some of our first pictures from the drone, enjoy!  

Finally, the project is indeed slated to start after the snow disappears this next spring. I know this isn’t the first time I have said this…. but we are determined to make it happen! We are working through the paperwork and have even gotten our first quote back on the foundation work. So far it still appears feasible! It is fun hearing how anxious some of our kids are to get the project going. They keep asking .. when is it going to snow?! (they have been told the snow has to come and go before we can get started.)  I still have a lot of paperwork to push and need to line up the financing. But once we clear those hurdles we should be good to go! I am currently waiting for a revision on the plans but as soon as I get that back.. I’lll send those over as well as some renderings I made in my CAD program. 

Here’s to hoping!!

Mark

P.S. The excavator is still working! Always a good week when that is the case 🙂