Week 2!!!!

Progress- we love it! We have running water (aka liquid gold), CLOSETS OH MY GOODNESS!  Such a luxury - even if you have to shake the clothes and check for bugs, scorpions, mice, etc before putting anything on - we cannot impress on you enough the joy of being able to locate a clean pair of underwear! Ha!

Our water pressure tank is operational (this means when we turn on a faucet, liquid gold comes out), our autofill works splendidly on the swamp cooler, we've rigged up a washing machine, clothesline and refrigerator. This is pure luxury people.

The most beautiful thing of all - bug bombs! They kill chiggers! We love them! We sheepishly admit to a hotel room for the weekend ostensibly to allow the bug bombs to do their magic!

All in all a great week and we look forward to building our solar array this week. Gravel and sod both arrive turning our little tent city into a virtual utopia.

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Our "home"  Two monster tents put together with plywood floors, swamp cooler, furniture, etc.



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Our favorite decoration!  Hard to tell but those are bomber size wasps entangled in the bug lines....what did we do last night, sat around and watched in fascination while a wasp tried to free itself.  It got an A for persistence...failed but still...



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Water lines, preparing for sod!  Yay!

A glimpse of our trailer havens....houses cannot arrive soon enough....but at least we have beds, AC, running water, etc.

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Soooo much still to do and our first house to build arrives July 16th - eeek!

 So....what have we learned this week? There is no shame in spending a much needed night or two in a hotel; chiggers can be killed; virtually any food can be cooked on a barbecue; there is indescribable satisfaction in progress; a $135 memory foam mattress from Costco is worth every penny...

 And...family is everything!

"Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you."

What a week but what great progress!  

A special thank you to our dear friends Joe and Maryanne for a VERY productive Sunday!

Our first week! We made it!

Our Tabula Rasa

This ladies and gentlemen is our starting point, our tabula rasa if you will. It looks beautiful and serene. Looks can be decieving! It was a brutal first week filled with 16 hour days but we came through it at the end empowered but what we accomplished.

First we learned in the high desert in June before you do anything you need shade. So we first added a bajillion tarp tents to further enhance the white trash appearance of our trailer gatherings.  

We gladly welcome child labor!

One shade shelter complete!

Once complete with furniture and swamp cooler it felt like the Ritz!

Then we learned that once cleared, our beautiful property really has a ton of dirt!  Bad for us, great for our workers!

Wide open spaces make great play areas, just ask the dachsund booking it in the background...

And indoor shelters, generators and swamp coolers have become our new best friends.

So what did we learn this week???  We'll brave high temps, challenging working conditions and put in really long, dusty and unpleasant days for this dream.  We've learned that we could care less what kind of bugs are good and bad...we kill them all (for all of you gasping at this concept try chigger bites and then tell us to be selective about what we kill); we've learned that peppermint oil and a diffuser can be our best friends; we've learned that a teapot of hot water poured over our heads at night can be the most luxurious feeling of all; we've learned that a close Starbucks is missed more than the family swimming pool (seriously!); we've learned that a call from the lab saying our well water is clear, drinkable and ready for use is more exciting than any other current world event and each day as our creature comforts are moved into place we've learned that family, hard work and a job well done make the world go round.

All our dreams can come true....if we have the courage to pursue them!

Walt Disney

In the beginning....

This blog is dedicated to our father, Harry Eugene Orcutt.  A truck driver who worked all his life looking forward to a dream of owning property and a log home.  On July 21, 2011, just 8 hours away from retirement while driving his truck home for the last time, our father suffered a massive heart attack and passed away.  His children have vowed to carry on his dream.  We sold our homes, purchased property, moved our families and will begin building our own log homes.  There is no water, no electricity...nothing but a dream.  This blog chronicles our adventure from the beginning.  

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.

RIP Daddy.