Still waiting on some engineering approvals on the house.... In the meantime, we are making some headway on the music studio. A little trimming of the branches around the studio's front porch.

The outside walls are coming along. We should have them done tomorrow.



I was over at a friend's house a couple days ago and watched the moon rise over the local hills. It was spectacular and my iPhone picture doesn't do it justice. What a great area to live in.

So the music studio is coming along... The blue on the concrete blocks is not the final color. That is the sealant.



It is a 2X6 frame for better insulation.



The inside floor will be raised for better acoustics.


And I have had plenty of help.


The roof will be metal. We are testing it out in case we want to go that way on our home building project. Vicky and I went down to the local metal fabricator and picked out what we liked and cut it on the spot. A little harder than a paper cutter, but the same concept.




I got the rafters up yesterday!



We are also advancing on our home. The subfloor plumbing is almost done.

Saturday, 16 August, we laid cement for the house footings. That's me in the ball cap working on my "leaning on the shovel" technique in case I want to become a professional road worker.

Hard work, but we got it done in five hours.




We had rented a rebar bender/cutter, but realized we would be a little short, so Tom "volunteered" to cut an additional 90 pieces of rebar the hard way.

Did I mention that this simple project of building a house was not enough for this intrepid builder, and I have added a few side projects just to keep it interesting?

I am also building a small music studio on the side of a hill, putting in a 60 foot by 32 foot garden (complete with an underground wired protection from gophers and other subterranean varmints and a fence to keep out the deer and discourage the raccoons, skunks, etc.) and I put in a fence and gate around my daughter's front yard. We are also putting in some fruit trees, and connected to the house project, I needed to build a pad for a 2,600 gallon water tank.

Here is the 10 by 10 pad for the water tank:




Here is the music studio pad. Tom decided he didn't want to grow up to be a cement worker. (For this pad we mixed 36 bags of pre-mix cement by hand and poured by shovel. Lots of great exercise.)

So finally we are really underway. After several months of figuring all this out on my own, I hired a building consultant that has "been there done that." Paul has been a builder for 30 years and brings a lot of straw-bale experience as well as traditional building experience with him. His son Mike brings additional vision, knowledge, and muscle to the team. My goal is to not only build my home, but find ways to create cost savings. Home building--especially owner/builder home building should not have to be only for the very well to do.

So here we go. We surveyed and laid out the house on August 12 and 13 (a couple hours each day). On the morning of the 14th we brought in a trencher to dig the footings.



On 15 August we cut and laid the rebar and got cleared to pour cement by the county building inspector that afternoon.



The building site was also inspected by my two grandsons.

Our family blog has been dormant for some time. As you know, we have relocated to California and are building our home in the foothills below Yosemite. We are building a straw bale home with other unique features. We thought you might enjoy the journey with us, so we are going to use this blog as our way of sharing the experience.

So to catch you up on our progress: We have been working with the County of Madera for over six months to get our house plans approved. We couldn't find any straw bale plans we liked so Vicky and I, with input from Tom and Rosemary, created our house plans and had a draftsman draw them up. The county required further engineering, so we hired an engineer... We have been through about ten different inspection processes, from seismic and geotechnical tests, septic and well water tests, Native American site inspection, grading and plot plan approvals, fire risk assessments, road plan approvals, and so on. We have spent about $20k and haven't even got house plans approved or building permit signed.

This has been an interesting experience. There have been days when I hold higher hope for Middle East Peace than getting various departments in the County to talk to each other... We love the area and the people. Our ward is great, we have family close by--which is a new experience for us, and everyday is a postcard picture. Here are a few pictures of the area and our land--so far.

First a few pictures of California.
A visit to the beach at Monterey:






The land we are building on has some beautiful views:








The creek that will be just out our back door. We have been gold panning on it, but no big nuggets yet. Very therapeutic though...






This is the road leading to our acreage--off to the left.


Preparing the lot:








Here is the building lot in all its glory...

We won't overwhelm you with pictures--we have about twenty just of different animal tracks across the building lot--from raccoons and rabbits, to bobcats and deer. From now on we will try to post once or twice a month...

Family Home Evening Lesson 5 February 2007

Rosemary, the Family Emergency Preparedness Leader gave a short lesson on how to avoid lightning and how to protect trees from being hit by lightening.

The Etiquette Word of the Week was Thank You Notes; Their importance and how to write them. We studied Luke 17:9 and also Ecclesiastes 11:1-6. We all decided that thank you notes are too rare in an age of phones and email, but that they are really important. Two other thoughts were brought up on this subject:

We cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love. (Mother Teressa)

Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others. (Kazuro Okakura)

The steps in writing a good thank you note are:
1)Greeting
2)Express your gratitude
a. Don’t say “I am just writing to say...”
b. Never directly mention money if you are writing to thank someone for a gift of money (thank you for your generosity... is better)
3)Touch on the meaning or importance of your gratitude
a. Don’t lie or stretch the truth to make your feelings seem more important
b. Don’t itemize
c. You can be arty, but not too flowery
4)Mention the past, allude to the future
a. It was nice to see you, I’ll call soon
5)Say thank you again
6)Closing
a. Sincerely
b. Love
c. Whatever is appropriate

It is important to write well and do your best. Handwritten is best. Nice paper is appropriate, but a yellow sticky may do the trick too. The most important thing is to be who you are and say what you feel.

Family Home Evening Lesson 29 January 2007

Vicky suggested we begin an Etiquette Word of the Week to help us all improve our manners, courtesies, and to help others feel comfortable in our home. The first word we discussed was Consideration. We discussed being a Mary first and a Martha second (Luke 10: 38-42) with guests. We discussed Doctrine and Covenants 124: 22-25 and likened the Lord’s guidance unto our own home. We talked about the importance of what we keep out of our home, but also of the importance of what we bring into our home. We decided to work on ways to think of our guests, not interrupting, being prepared ahead of time, and focusing on our guests.