This was an exciting weekend! We broke ground on the property!!! The excavator rolled up on a SEMI!
The guy then drove it down the hill and onto our land. C pulled up about 5 minutes after the semi left. We were planning on using the equipment first thing Saturday morning but we were both so excited we decided to get started on it right then and there. It was fantastic. The bucket drove through that ground like it was soft butter. We worked on it for about 30 minutes until we had to go pick up the kids.
Our plan was to get started on it first thing Saturday morning and have it finished by Saturday night. It didn’t quite work out the way we had planned. The excavator had some issues the next day. It kept stalling and it was really difficult to run. We got about halfway done with digging it out when it finally just gave up. We are supposed to have a new piece of equipment on Tuesday though.
It sucks because we will have to work late for a few days this week to get back on our schedule but as long as we can get it done by this next weekend we plan on finishing up the excavating using a backhoe to flatten it out and dig out the spots for the septic system, the cistern (we are pretty sure we are going to do a cistern instead of a well), the grey water filtration, and the pipes. Once that is done we will be laying the pipes, filling the grey water filtration, and getting the gravel and then the concrete for the foundation. When the foundation is set we can start on the tires (which will take the longest time and is virtually free, except for paying a few people to help). The upcoming problem is that the gravel and concrete will cost us close to $5000 which will take us about 5-6 months to save up. We really don’t want to have to stall the project for that long. So it looks like we will be running a GoFundMe campaign for a short period of time. I was hoping to not have to, but we can’t put the project on hold for that long. Once we run the campaign we wont have much in the way of expenses until we put the solar panels in (which we are using next years tax refund for), and buy the cistern and septic tank. I’m not too concerned about those though because we will have at least 4 months of mostly saving money which will pay for those things. This initial building cost is stressing me out a bit though. I guess all I can do is tell people my need and pray!!
