Well the backhow guy finally showed up this morning. Last week he said Friday or Monday. Monday night he called and said Wednesday. Wednesday, lunchtime, he called and said he'd be here later in the afternoon. When he pulled in this morning I was very tempted to tell him to turn around and leave. It was 110F here yesterday--I would have loved to have been somewhere cooler, but I couldn't even go down to the waterfall for waiting for him.

He had to leave at 2:00PM. He probably would have been done by then, but this dirt is HARD. He's got a big old Caterpillar and it was straining to break up the rocky hardpan. A few feet down it changes to red clay. The clumps I picked up are too sandy for pottery, but would make good bricks. It also looks like it will make a good floor. There's one more corner to dig out, the place to put the stairs for the door and about 100' of trench for the drain-line.

I haven't done any timber cutting all week. Even in the morning it gets too hot too soon to get a significant amount of work done. I'm still hoping to have the house raising Sept 23 & 24th. Most of the kind people who said they could come are only planning on being her Saturday. I hope to get the frame up Saturday and the wall and roof poles on over that Sunday and Monday. If anybody wants to come earlier they can help me get the poles ready. If you come later you can help me backfill and such.

If you don't know about my plans for the cedar earhlodge, read my Journal for the last couple weeks at: http://ledgewood-consulting.com/cgi-bin/farmIntro.html

==>paul

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 31, 2000

Answers

I'll be with you in spirit!

Your arrogant friend,

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 31, 2000.

I sure hope it'll cool off some for you!

Take care,~~~Tracy~~~

-- Tracy Jo Neff (tntneff@ifriendly.com), September 01, 2000.

That is so cool Paul. Steve and I looked at the pics in the magazine and really wanted one for ourselves. One thing, you said "used carpeting" for the roof, check this out, my new friend in Ky said her husband can get those rubber conveyer belts from the mines, used ones. That would be great for a roof coating. Thick rubber. She wants some for her dog kennels flooring. You could melt them together somehow. If you lived closer we would come and help just to learn. Neat house.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), September 01, 2000.

Well the hole is whole. I didn't say anything to him about not showing up. I didn't want to say anything before he was done--I didn't want him mad at me for getting mad at him. After he was done there was little point is saying anything. I'll just get somebody else for my next job.

The good clay may not cover the whole floor. I need to clean out some loose stuff, I might find clay under all of it. I know from the trench for the French drain that I wouldn't need to go down more than a few inches. Unless I want window too high to see out of, or that start below grade, I can't go any deeper though.

Sheepish arrogant? Never. Thanks for the thoughts.

Tracy, Thank you for the thoughts as well. It only got up to 99.7 here yesterday. It was the first day in at least a week that it didn't break 100F. It's supposed to still be 90-100 into next week though.

Cindy, There isn't any mining around here, except rock quarries and I don't know if they would use such belts. They would be excellent though. You wouldn't need to melt them. A good contact cement may be hard to work with--you don't get a second chance to position the two pieces--but given a few inches of overlap will form a seal as strong as the rubber. If I knew I could get a truckload of it, it would probably be worth the drive to KY.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), September 02, 2000.

In reference as to how to join the belts if you can obtain them, try looking for an item called "Alligator Clips" They are the common answer for the joining of belting and are not too expensive.

-- Wayne Roach (R-WAY@msn.com), September 23, 2000.