one year in an essay which also explains what's going on in my pants

Life was getting too easy.  Things were getting almost complacent. With Annabelle starting kindergarten soon, we stepped back to think about where we want to be for the next several years.  Not sure how many years, but from at least Kindergarten -through- as long as she makes it before robots take over  the public education system. 

 Anyways, we decided we want more skiing in our lives and we should move to Winthrop, WA. Houses are expensive, even fixer-uppers, you can pay over 1/2 million dollars for a turd of a house.  With our waning enthusiasm for polishing all the turds in our lives, we decided to just take a stab at building our own house. This could also be one of those weird things people do when they hit 40, but instead of learning how to play the saxophone or buying a fast red car which seem pretty easy things from this perspective we are going to do the build your own house thing. Since Brandon has learned to think in his sleep we will probably be okay, maybe. 

Not much land is for sale in Winthrop and when land is up for sale it was like wolves fighting over scrap, except all the wolves were willing to pay a lot of money for it. Brandon decided to write letters to  property owners  asking if anyone wanted to sell a family a piece of land. I told him I thought it was a waste of time, he told me "but will you just stamp them and put them in the mailbox". 

We met a guy named Roy Robeck who sold us a cool property that he originally bought in the 70's.  We didn't go into a bidding war, we just paid him what he asked, then he came over gave Lisa a bottle of wine, Annabelle a kid kayak, and  Brandon a bunch of fishing gear.  He was a genuinely nice old guy who we now send Christmas cards to and keep in touch.

We started filling out permits which is basically paying money, filling out forms and waiting. While we waiting we decided a good place to start  being builders would be to get matching Carhart sweatshirts.  Now we look pretty legitimate. 

Our property is hilly. Brandon said he didn't want to be builder unless if he could buy some construction equipment.  He settled on an excavator, but  purchased it from a private party who lives on an island. He drove it onto ferry without really knowing how to drive an excavator because return trips on the ferry are free. 

 Along those same lines, we also bought a F350 from another old guy named Dale, and an equipment trailer from some cowboy in Texas.

Last summer was spent  playing an adult version of sandbox, building driveways and installing utilities. Brandon could now be considered a skilled operator. Lisa is proficient but not too confident, every time she gains confidence, she tips over the excavator.  We also rented a bobcat, she tipped that over too. 

Lisa also broke the tracks off the excavator. Youtube has instructions for fixing broken excavator tracks. According to YouTube you spend money at John Deere buying tracks but feel better about it because you get free popcorn and coffee. Then get two guys that weight approximately 400 pounds each and lift the tracks up and put them back on.   

We also laid some serious pipe with Don spending hours making inappropriate jokes about the male and female ends of conduit coming together and the glue in-between. And found out I can jump 6 feet in the air if put in a trench with a snake.   

Excavation is a pretty dusty dirty sport. One morning we went to the grocery store and strolled in for some light shopping.  We must have been quite a sight, with all three of us being dusty head to toe, Annabelle not wearing shoes, and all of us wearing yesterdays dirty clothes. The middle aged woman in line behind us insisted that she should buy our groceries.  I do believe she thought we were homeless. 

We spent the winter doing free excavation work for our friends,  and coming up with plans to build a garage with a loft. We also procured a 20 year old used  free composting toilet from another old guy named Glenn. Now every morning at the property we thank Glenn. 

As soon as the snow melted we drove over and started working. We now have the footing for our garage foundation poured and are working laying bricks for the stem walls. As I sit here typing, I have some kind of aggregate stuck between my underwear and my buttchecks. I think it's either portland cement or S mortar due to it's sandy appearance. But it's really unclear. I think I might just end this and go take care of that.