A "Cirque de Soleil" kind of day!

Hanging the BIG beam that tops off our kitchen. (gasp!)

My first opportunity to sit in front of the new fireplace.

Here's how we looked at the end of the day today. The result of a lot of muscle & brains!

It's not even 8am! And already the workers have accomplished this much! WOW!

Before sun-up, yesterday....this!

Our KITCHEN! Right here in this big pile!!

And then THIS (My heart beat was on hold until the workers finished removing the very slippery steel panels. Thank the Lord, nobody fell off!

Our Very Special Consultant, my honorable brother, arrived early to weigh in and tell me everything I needed to know for the day. Thank you, Mr H! Our honorable sister-in-law stopped in also and helped me hoist some lumber, covering it in case rain came in. Thanks, Melli!

Granny & Papa very kindly brought us a big pan of lasagna, a beautiful salad, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for a convivial dinner at day's end. Thank you folks! It was such FUN!

Beginning to look REAL!

The result of the work on Saturday is the prettiest little concrete slab, and a sweet San Diego Buff-colored concrete portal. We are so happy with how it all looks! We spent much of Sunday cleaning up outside, so the job site will be tidy and pleasant. Framing begins tomorrow.

Commander used Li'l Red's new trailer hitch for the very first time, to go to the dump, of course.

Visitors on Concrete Day!

Amber, Aaron, Miles & Gavin pay us a call...and we end up in the pumpkin patch!

Learning about Apples!!

More concrete, today!

At 7:30 am the Duke City Concrete truck will pull in again, and leave us with our slab and our front portal pad. Then, the real fun will begin!

A couple of visitors bearing Strawberry Rhubarb pie, and our Master Electrician!

Papa

Granny

Our master electrician! Thanks, T-Bone!

Inspector says we are ready for our SLAB!

THIS was some MESSY work! Cutting away the concrete stem wall for our portal step. Notice the screen in the image; I was INSIDE for this part!

Our future Asian-inspired garden site, in the background.

And now our kitchen looks....like THIS! We will have a slab either Saturday or Monday.

Some BIG work got done Yesterday!

Lots of traffic today at Little Bird Farm! It wore me out, watching everyone work so hard! Even my camera is exhausted and I can't post any new pictures until she recharges. (Is there a parallel there?)

Our plumber and his son started their big work at 9 and finished around 11 - laying a huge yellow gas line in the 36" deep trench; and the slimmer, white water line, which had to make lots of jigs and jags and backs and forths to get our water everywhere it needs to go. You don't really think about all the different directions water has to travel under a house! There's the cold path, the hot path, both ways to and from the source, to the outside hose bibs, etc - lots of pipe! Podge & Melli came to inspect the work and had good comments and ideas, as always. And then, we awaited the County Plumbing Inspector - who had one correction for our plumber to make - which was an easy one, and quickly made.

Then concrete and grading crew returned. That means Noise and Dust & Dirt & "beep-beep-beep"! For hours! Until 6pm, as a matter of fact! They did a splendid job, as the photos will show. They removed most of the junk, like old concrete, tree branches, and lousy driveway soil, which would otherwise confound our gardening in that new area. (Our main concrete man is a gardener!! Yay!!) It is all nice & smooth now. A blank slate for our Asian-inspired garden, in the shade of the old cottonwood trees!

Presently awaiting the Foundation Inspector, and our special electrician - T-bone!

And thank you to our amazing neighbors! Bob & Shelda had us over for a lovely dinner last night. Mike and Janet have welcomed us for dinners, and numerous showers too. We just don't know what we would do without you four VERY gracious people! You ease our strained situation tremendously, while sharing our excitement for our new kitchen! Thank you. :)

"Thank you" to our loyal well-wishers!

Here are some much-loved well wishers who are much too far away! (But safely out of the line of LBF Kitchen addition fire!)

Josh, Paige and Piper Gaye * * * Nate, Sara and Abigail Jane

Bad, to Better, to Worse?

If one didn't know better, one might believe - looking at the state of things here today - that we have gone from Bad, to Better (a little), to Worse! The old saying that "you have to break a few eggs to make a cake" is appropriate today. Some eggs have truly been broken here this afternoon in our "cake" endeavor! It is a veritable maze of deep, scary trenches out there! And yes - more piles of dirt! Tomorrow, the plumber will lay our new gas and water lines in these trenches. Now THAT will move us along toward....WAY BETTER!

These guys even work on SATURDAY!

7:15am - The guys arrive to place the stem wall forms and pour! We knew they were coming, but when they got here so early, we were pretty surprised. EVERYTHING went great! My honorable brother came over to weigh in - a thing he does that we appreciate more than we can say! Even the plumber stopped in to mark his gas and water lines for trenching.

Next on the list of things to do: Remove the kitchen cabinets so the wall can come down! Tim & neighbor, Mike, finessed the uppers right down, so we can re-use them in our guest casita one of these fine days!

Pulling out nails - there are a zillion!

WE PASSED OUR 1st COUNTY BUILDING INSPECTION!

HIP-HIP.....HOORAY!! And there's more! Within an hour of a phone call, we also had a cement truck here. Which resulted (within minutes!) in footings. Hooooray!

Little Bird Farm had 24 hours of Peace & Quiet, and then....

....thankfully, the workers (and the noise) returned! At the end of the day, we now have footings dug and we are ready for our 1st Inspection by a county inspector! (Hopefully, our 1st of many "passing grades"! I must admit that I am having some serious test anxiety!)

Seems like much ado about a small dirt square!

This outcropping will be our fireplace. :)

All that DIRT?

Compacted, watered down, compacted some more.

Nearly ready to actually.....BUILD a kitchen!

And so begins another day.

Actually, these first 2 shots were taken last night when Commander got home from work and was amazed at the grandeur of the hole and resulting pile of dirt!

This morning.

A little reminder to Keep Looking UP!