Dan's wife, kids, brother, and sister-in-law all arrived last night. Today we are hiking at Foster Falls, an area about 20 minutes from our property where we plan to spend a lot of time climbing at in the future. It's really hot and I'm feeling pretty tired from not sleeping well last night, but it's beautiful. Here are 2 pictures Anna took with her phone. Since I haven't been able to download any of my pictures yet, I'll try to have her take a picture of the shed later.
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We have been staying in our neighbor Theresa's guest house while the weather has been so rainy, which is super nice. On Sunday I played with the Nazarene church's worship band. It was fun. I'm the only kid, and the other guys are really good bluegrass musicians. Dan caught the biggest fly I've ever seen in a jelly jar to show his kids. His family is coming to see us on Thursday on their way to Maine to stay with Anna's family for a month. I also saw 3 awesome walking sticks and some more box turtles. The tree frogs make noise all the time. Today we finished putting the flashing on the shed and cut out holes for the gutter pipes. We also dug out more rocks from the area that will be the house foundation and marked out the corners more accurately. When we went to town, we did some dumpster diving at a construction site, and got some buckets and totes for the rainwater catchment system, so we'll be working on that tomorrow. We went up the road and hung out on Greg's porch, which has the best view of the valley. They made us sundaes. Later we went to Billy's, our next-door neighbor, and they gave us amazing pork chops, baked beans, and sweet potatoes for dinner. Dad is happy that their dogs Hoss (pit bull) and Duke (German Shepherd) are treating us like family too (Hoss likes to sleep on Dad's sleeping bag). On Thursday, Theresa's friend is taking me to play my guitar at the Senior Center and she's going to give me an accordion lesson (yes!). On Saturday I'm going to go fishing or swimming. Most days I have been working on the path from the road up to the house. Dad and Dan dig out the stumps, boulders, and roots and do most of the grading. For me, "working on the path" pretty much means ridding it of rocks and poison ivy. So far I've avoided getting a rash, but Dad has it bad - blisters breaking out on blisters. He won't let me take a picture of it, but if you do a Google image search for "worst poison ivy rash ever" that would probably give you a good idea. Our rugged neighbor Billy who sets his own broken bones even suggested Dad should see a doctor. He finally got a Prednisone course today so hopefully that will help. The CVS pharmacist has a son who is an awesome rock climber, so he gave us his number so we can have a local show us some good spots. We got a nice shower system set up. We bought two garden sprayers and filled the first with water and a little Doc Bronner's peppermint castile soap to scrub with and the second with rinse water. It makes showers super fast and easy and uses hardly any water. Sleeping in the tent hasn't been too bad. I pass out every night shortly after dark and sleep right through the roosters crowing next door. Most of our meals have been tortilla, bean, and salsa based, rotating through eggs, hot dogs, canned chicken, and tuna for variety. We had a good mac and cheese with tomatillo salsa and chicken the other night. There are some good vines that hang from the trees for swinging, but they're hard and woody, not like the Tarzan kind. My favorite one broke the other day, but there are plenty more. Last night we went to Billy's house and I played HORSE with their son Isaac until it got dark. The ticks haven't bothered us lately. We seriously saw like a thousand the first few days, but I haven't noticed any since we've been working on the path. A neighbor said the ticks get excited for fresh blood but then they leave you alone. Weird. I have seen a bald eagle and several large falcons, which make the chickens go crazy. Today we went to Goodwill to find Dad some thick, long sleeved shirts for poison ivy protection, and to Radio Shack to get a cord to hook the computer up. Now we are hanging out at the Sequatchie Cove Farm. Since the path is pretty much done, we are working on clearing the footprint for a shed. Dad said that after we finish that, we can go to China Buffet to celebrate. I am really looking forward to that! We went to Jasper Church of the Nazarene and Dr. Richard took us to McDonalds for lunch. That is where I am now to make my updates. Then we're going to do laundry and tonight I'm going to youth group.
Our neighbor Greg brought his tractor up and saved us quite a few days.
On Thursday we arrived and hauled our stuff up to a flat spot halfway between our house and the drive and that's when we discovered ticks. We started the digging out the driveway and set up the tent and continued digging on Friday.
We slept in a parking lot again because the trailer tire blew out. That really sucked.
We stayed at Aunt Ruth's in Kansas City and spent much of the evening trying to find their dog.
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IsaacI'm 13 years old, building our new house with my dad and Dan. I like to bike, play the guitar, piano, and banjo, build with LEGOs, compose music, and creating games. Archives
April 2013
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