Work is Beginning

I'll need to do a longer, post about the construction process, but here's a quick update. Carrie hired an electrician Kyle referred to wire up the barn with power, lights, and fans. He started work today. 

He need to rent the equipment to trench and run power lines over to the barn.

Kyle is starting the tamping process with throwing in poles. Carrie has been keeping in constant communication with everyone.

We're starting to see progress again after a couple of weeks of quiet (Contractors needed to complete current jobs, etc). Carrie's spirits are higher than they have been for months.

New Teacher Academy Week

I'm not the only new teacher in the county this year.

Tuesday kicked off full time work again for me. I'm not paid anything extra for it, but I have four days of inservice and acclimation to my new world.

The good news: Everything was really well organized. Some of the trainings were spot on with good presenters.

The bad news: Summer is officially ending! The drive is in great, but once the heat hits the drive home is less stellar without ac.

Shane stayed home with Carrie to drive her crazy. He and I started to put together his new loft bed while she was out mowing Wednesday night.

He was keen on helping until he realized he had to do more than one screw. I didn't let him escape and with some encouragement (and some gruff) Shane hung around and did a good job.

Everything took twice as long by involving him, but kids need to learn how to do this sort of thing.

Plus, I think he'll find it rewarding knowing he helped put his bed together.

Thursday, I got my first look at my new classroom.

It's a smaller classroom. The furniture all looks new and rolly. 

I started to spin one of the desks in circles and envisioned a running start to surf down the hallway.

If I thought it, I know that some students are going to have the same idea! I'm going to need to keep the brakes on everything.

Someone named Mason discovered my classroom before me.

Either he loves goats or needs a lesson in spelling + etiquette.

By Friday, I rolled out a sample layout. Meetings filled most of the week and my downtime was used for processing and learning the lay of the land more than making any final decisions. There will still be another week of inservices and meetings before the kids arrive.

Carrie and Shane finished his bed while I was at work one day.

He's pretty happy about it.

I'm not sure what they did the other days. Carrie sent me this pic. Make of it what you will.

Endings and Beginnings

Shane was up bright and early, ready to explore.

Carrie took him out for a spin around the property in the gator.

I had to go in for my first day of work/training at noon. I drove in faith the gauge predicted how much fuel I had correctly (again!). With the fuel light flashing, I drove 25 miles up to Costco to fill up, swung by the Extended Day Enrichment Program (EDEP) office to pay for Shane's first month, and then scooted to my training at my new high school.

When I got back, I found Carrie and Shane mowing.

They didn't hear me when I called out, but I caught up soon enough.

That's my family!

Carrie had a contractor come by in the afternoon named Kyle. Kyle had already been contracted to install automatic waterers in our fields, but he also did fences. He'd been our property while we were out and confirmed our suspicions that the bad contractors had augured down to throw in our fence posts instead of tamping or setting them properly.

Carrie asked him a bunch of questions over the weekend and he was straightforward. He did not use concrete. He didn't like the slacklines Carrie was thinking about using and explained why. He said he used a post driver and explained how it worked and why he did it.

Today, Kyle drove by with four spare posts he had lying around and gave Carrie a free sample.

It took him maybe 15 minutes to slam in four posts with talking and answering questions in between. 

The post on the right is the one Kyle set. The post on the left is one Carrie pulled out and I threw back in for comparison.

Perspectives can be funny, so here's a closer in shot with a stake to help. Kyle's post was at least 6 inches deeper than the previous post. Some dirt may have fallen in the hole of the previous post, so it might have sat an inch deeper before Carrie pulled it out. Might. It certainly wasn't in as deep or as solidly as Kyle's.

Kyle joked that he was tempted to give Carrie and shovel and say, "If you can get that out in under 15 minutes I'll do the whole property for free."

It's a good thing he didn't or I would have taken that challenge!

When we asked the bad contractors to walk away, we'd also told them, "Pick your stuff up by Wednesday. Take whatever lumber you want, but we're getting rid of whatever is left."

They arrived just as Carrie was finishing talking to Kyle.

It was the Amish guy with someone I hadn't met. The head contractor hadn't bothered to help him pick up his Bobcat. They'd worked together for 8 years.....

It was a sad situation. Carrie and Shane went inside while they started to load up and I stayed in the garage just in case there were questions.

I ended up on the back of the trailer helping. The box full of trash collapsed as it was being loaded. We had to throw trash into the back of the truck and re-position the load so that the bobcat could fit. There's no dump nearby, so it had to be done in one load or it would have added an hour of travel time back and forth to their journey.

I felt bad for Allen hearing some things from his end. He told me about how Scott had convinced him to buy materials at times even though Scott had taken money for us. He asked for a copy of what Scott had signed and I provided it. "Are you going to try and recoup what he owes you?" I asked.

"Can't," he said. "Religious reasons. Not supposed to." He said he'd keep asking nicely in the hope Scott would pay him what he was owed, because he had his own mouths to feed. Allen's wife was there and she'd brought a baby with her.

I bear him no ill will and told him I'd remember in my prayers. He wanted to know about what we were going to do about the posts and I showed him the driven ones.

Later that evening, Carrie went out for more mowing. She had ear protection this time and described it as relaxing. The sun went down and she turned on headlights for night mowing.

And she's still not finished. She spent over five hours mowing and it looks like our mower is too small for the task. It might suffice if we had horses on the property to act like giant, yard vroombas, but we're a ways off from being ready for them.

Barn Fiasco

Jet lag helps with rising early....at least, when you're coming off of Scottish time. 6 AM feels like 11 AM.

The contractors have been asking for money the whole time we've been out of town. They've been sending pictures and asking to get paid. We refused to do so until we inspected the work. There have been some other issues while we've been out.

Carrie's been soured on the whole experience. She's been dreading dealing with everything when we got back and she was right.

Carrie walked the fence line and started to measure it when she noticed a section missing from her drawing. I went out to help later on.

By her calculations, the fence line was over 100 ft short (~10%). The worksmanship was lacking.

From a photo or the street? Passable.

The moment you walked up to it and saw what it looked like? Fail.

It felt like the workers had thrown everything up as quickly as they could without quality control to get a check and cash out before anyone was the wiser. Carrie was able to shake the fenceline with a single hand. She stewed as it rippled like a wave in the ocean.

Carrie walked over to the posts that were supposed to anchor the electric fence lines. They wiggled, and she pulled one out with minimum effort.

They went anywhere from 14-18" down instead of at least 24" and used zero concrete. The contract specified concrete (There are other, perhaps better ways without concrete, but it was in the contract and this was none of those).

The barn wasn't done either. There were no latches or handles on most of the doors. Nails had been driven through to hold them in place and some still had nails sticking out of the door itself.

There was a sharp metal flashing around the outside that could easily cut a horse.

There was a stall door that couldn't be opened all the way due to the floor being unlevel and other issues I'm not mentioning here.

Carrie was crestfallen and furious (somehow). I had hoped that they'd make things right, but was proven wrong.

I have a video of her inspecting the arena I'm not going to post (reasons later). All of the retaining boards were on the wrong side of the fence. By mounting them outside, the arena gravel would push the boards away from the posts rather than pushing them into them. Again, the fenceline shook and swayed multiple posts down when Carrie shook it with one hand. A horse attempting to casually scratch it's butt could have collapsed a section on accident.

Grandma and Grandpa came over to help deal with the contractors when they arrived. They tried to bring some concrete to "fix everything," but we were past that point.

The contractor tried to claim everything was fine and serviceable and Carrie pulled out a post right in front of him. We walked over to the fence in the front yard and were able to lift the end post out of the ground and measure exactly how far down it was.

Carrie and her parents told them to walk. It was emotional. We paid what was left of the barn even though there were problems and told them we wouldn't pay a cent for the fence because it was unusable and would need to be redone. We couldn't even reuse the lumber, because the tops had been cut down to make them appear further in the ground. The contractor signed a paper agreeing to walk away and in return Carrie, Grandpa, and Grandma wouldn't post a video of the fence line and their work and blast them online (I never signed the agreement, but I won't post the video here. I will keep it in my back pocket just in case, though).

The whole process has been disappointing. We have a clean conscience because we've been clear the whole time and paid them for the barn even though there were problems and the work was lacking. We weren't trying to screw someone over to get a deal. We've had to pay at least an extra month's board for all of our horses (and probably two or three by the end of it) due to their delays.

It's been a big mess.

Carrie spent part of the day calling new contractors and trying to find a way to continue the work, so that her horses can come home eventually.

UPDATE: It gets worse. Apparently, the head guy was lying to the Amish guy about how much had been paid. The Amish guy called Grandma and asked how much was paid overall. When he heard, he dropped the Amish equivalent of an "Oh My _____! I'm never working with him again." The head contractor had been convincing him to pay for some materials even though we gave our first check back in December to get the project started.

Travel Time

Monday morning started off normal. We unpacked. We move in (more). Carrie did work stuff. I kept busy and the barn crew worked.

Carrie's really happy with the quality of the work so far if not for the timing of it. Scott was asking for money again and swearing to Carrie that everything would be done by Thursday.

I'll be happy when the barn drama is done. Carrie will be ecstatic.

We finished clearing out our storage unit and checked out. The storage guy recognized us and even remembered our unit number off the top of his head. I would use the lot again, but I won't skimp on the lock twice.

We met Grandma and Grandpa at Wegman's before heading to Dulles. We are going to Scotland to help lead a tour group! We'll do the work up front and then have some days to play on the back end.

Grandma and Grandpa had travel documents, a GPS with Allen Rickman's voice programmed in, and some goodbye hugs for us.

Carrie showed them pictures of the yard and barn progress. "Now, I told Scott to talk to you while we're out of town and he will probably ask you for money," she said. She made sure they had contracts, documentation for everything paid, and her notes on things that needed to be fixed (like nails through the new stall doors needing to be clipped).

Then we were off. It was a two hour drive, but it took us three hours due to some construction and getting burritos for dinner! I didn't want to pay for any airport food when I could stuff myself silly beforehand!

Nana and Shane called while we were on the shuttle. He acted like he was surprised we were flying to Scotland. It's not like we haven't told him, but he's having too much fun to keep track of anything else.

Our gate got moved and the flight was weather delayed, but Carrie and I made it! We were in different boarding groups for some reason, but the agent let us hop on together.

We'll be flying overnight, so the plan is to get some sleep.

First Weekend on the Farm

Carrie went to visit Nibs Saturday morning and left me in charge. We were supposed to get some visitors to attend to some missed spots around the house. They showed up right as I started to exercise and out of breath.

They did a less than stellar job patching. I did a less than stellar job supervising. 

They missed spots and did a rough job and no clean-up. I was too trusting. I spotted a spot or two for them to fix, but then started to notice other things they missed as I walked around afterward.

If I spotted it, you know that Carrie noticed it. We'll have to have them back in August after our trip. The microwave fan sounds like it's DOA and there are other issues here and there the builders need to iron the wrinkles out of it.

Another issue has been creeping up on Carrie's radar: Foxtail.

Foxtail is dangerous to horses. Carrie described to me as, "It has microscopic barbs and gets stuck in mucous membranes where it lodges and creates irritation/ulcers." It is in a ring around the house and barn. It was not there originally, so our best guess is that when the land was churned up for construction the foxtail was somewhere in the soil or introduced. Thankfully, it's not in the pastures.

Our past bush-hog guy put us off for a few weeks and Carrie called in a new guy. He was an older gentleman who's son is taking over the business. He squeezed us in Sunday morning and was careful to avoid our well even though it was camouflaged amongst Shane high foliage.

Carrie was pleased!

The hope is the shorter grass will look better and assist with the fence construction (assuming the barn crew gets to it before it grows again).

The construction delays have cost us. We need to get the horses on property so that they can help eat the grass down (What are horses other than large, expensive, yard roombas?). As is, we're paying for them to be somewhere else and to get the land mowed.

And whatever stray shoot gets missed, Carrie rips out by hand! (Not usually).

I took a picture from the back of the property. It's getting closer to being finished.

We had a bunch of ominous clouds roll through Sunday.

The wind howled and couldn't decide upon a direction. We had the makings for a sizable storm, but thankfully we were only clipped.

The wind threw some construction material into my car. It looked like I crashed right into it! No damage was done, but I had to pick up various materials blown all over the yard I didn't think would ever be blown all over the yard!

Monday, Carrie and I are going on a work/business trip. We celebrated our first week in the house with some pie.

Here's what we look like from the front.

There are still things to do, but we're here!