Footings, yessssss

We were surprised on Saturday to find that they we going to pour concrete.  I was hoping that we would, because it would give the weekend to cure and block laying could begin on Monday.

I thought the cool thing they used was the outside form.  It's a plastic form that you leave in place and its secondary use is out drain tile.

Well, it's not that I haven't been keeping this up to date, but rather we had a case of the blues, droplet size blues in the form of rain. The lifters were done on the 17th of June, and it managed to rain Friday morning, Sunday night, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Tuesday night, Wednesday morning.  Pretty depressing to say the least. History won't record this, but it will remember this as the year that the Elkhorn river flooded half of Norfolk and the surrounding communities. But, the rains stopped, at least long enough to get some footings formed.

Up, up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful houuuuse.

Okay, it doesn't have the same kind of ring as the song, but nonetheless, the house is officially up in the air.  More to follow.

The Great Escape

Tigger II is also checking out the dirt pile.

 

The cat spent the day in the house.  Now that he is out, he is checking out what they were doing under the house all day.

 

It won't be long and I will have to be building a gang plank.  That first step can be a little tricky.

 Watch that first step Sandi!

I was really curious as to how they got the beam under the house.  It couldn't be easier as it turns out.  Grab the beam in the middle with the Bobcat, and just walk it to the roller sitting on top of the crib. It gets pushed in by hand and adjusted along the way with a hammer to keep it on track.

Dale is the man running that Bobcat. Granted, it's what he does for a living, but nontheless, it is still impressive to watch someone who is that in touch with his machine.  Here he is unloading the 2nd beam that will go under the house.

When I got home from work, they were almost done digging out the other side and were preparing to put the cribbing in for the beams.  Rain is foretasted for tomorrow and they wanted to get everything in place to keep the house safe.

This is a picture that has never been seen before at my house in its 100 year + history. People are standing under the floor joists.

Today was another busy day. I came home at lunch to find half of our basement wall missing as well as half of the basement dug out. This picture is of the brick part o the basement wall. I was surprised to see a double brick foundation wall. I'm guessing it was the origional foundation wall.

And, we're off!

One of the roots from the tree. Even though it is down, she is still going to put up a fight.

Not much left on the back porch.  The stairs will stay for a while yet until they get under there with the bobcat.

I'm thinking about writing Alanis Morissette for another verse to "Ironic". Isn't it ironic somebody who hates snakes has so many around his house?

Lots of activity today.  The house lifters were there when I got home for lunch, and already the sidewalks were gone, and they were working on the back stoop.  I'm thinking about doing a snake kill count, which would be a total of 8. Sandi got one when we took down the swingset, and they got 7 today so far from under the slab. We also had the electrician here today hooking up power to the garage so we will have power at the house?  I guess we have to say, power at the jobsite since we have no power, no water, no gas. The house is ere right now walking through it.

The Tree is Gone

Our naked little house.  Most likely the first time it has been hit with full sunlight in 70 years.

The fall of the tree did a number on our sidewalk.

The tree came down. Neighbors within a 1 block radius of our house are rejoicing for there will be no more pine cones in their yard. The stump was oozing with sap, it was sad to see a tree with no damage go.  It was a solid tree.