Day 19 - Walls, Mud Puddles & Frustrations

Yesterday we framed the west wall of the house but left it lying down since it was a 29' wall - better left to stand up when Mr.W could bring the wall jacks and help us.  Today that wall stands.

Today we worked on framing the north wall of the main floor and it is an even longer wall than the west wall, totalling 60'+ in length.  We ran into a couple of challenges that slowed us down and then the nail gun jammed which stopped us completely.  When Jay managed to get the nail gun working again, I had to leave.  So, most of the wall is done but not all of it so that is frustrating.  Plus we were supposed to frame the fireplace walls and only got it laid out, not put together.  Another frustration.

Then, while we were working on the walls, the girls were looking like this:

Turns out they thought mud-swimming would be a good idea.  Needless to say, I was not impressed.  Oh, yes, I did take a picture but I was not happy.  After all, I did tell them to stay out of the mud.  I expected them to get a little dirty but this was totally unacceptable.  Especially since today is baseball day and now all 5 kids needed to have a quick shower before eating and racing off to play.  No wonder the laundry is unending.  I also learned that a 40 gallon hot-water tank is not sufficient to shower 7 people, even when the showers were not lengthy, lingering ones.  These were the "hurry-up-and-shower-quick-because-we-have-to-eat-and-go" kind of a shower.  That will certainly be remedied in the new house.

So now I am tired and a little disappointed in not getting as much done as we wanted.  We are also frustrated with the amount of rain that we have received (and more is in the immediate forecast) since that has put a huge delay on the back fill of the house (which, therefore, delays the first disbursement from the bank!).  It would be possible to hire a backhoe to do the work but Jay really wants to save that money and do it himself with the tractors available to him.  It just means he needs it to be a little drier since the wet clay really slicks up the tires and renders them useless.  On the bright side, we are continuing to make progress (and they are coming for a progress inspection tomorrow), Jay is out there right now working on getting the rest of the gravel in the basement so we can completely cover the first floor and maybe back fill some more if the soggy mud doesn't hinder him, and Mr.W will be back tomorrow after being busy out of town for most of Monday-Wednesday.  We miss Mr.W when he is gone - we have a lot to learn from him but we are so proud of what we were able to accomplish without his presence, even if it was only 1/4 of what a "real" construction crew would have achieved!  :)