Rancho Status Quo Summer 2019

So, we have moved things forward on our cabin/land project quite a bit.   In a couple of weeks a contractor will start building out the loft, kitchen and bathroom.  In preparation we cleared out a lot of our stuff and organized the rest into two condensed piles that are hopefully out of the way for the workers.

Anyhow, here is the before picture!  The stuff shuffle continues...

So the building is ready for it's transformation!

In other news we tore down the shed that we built in 2007 that was "protecting" our pump.  It was a harborage for rodents for these many years and it was very refreshing to see it disassembled. 

Roof came off first

Here you can see the pump inside the shed

Off with the sides

The final resting place of the shed - landfill

Thank you Husband for handling this nasty job

After the metal pieces went to the landfill there was still the issue of removing the floor.  The floor was made up of some OSB attached to a metal H frame.  The OSB was cut with a rectangular hole to go around the well casing and rough plumbing.  The OSB was rotted in places and covered in rodent feces.  It was really quite disgusting.

It took Husband some time to pry the OSB from the H frame and then cut the OSB so that it could be slid away from the well casing and pumps.

Finally the well is in the fresh air!  One thing we are certain of is that the well has not been contaminated.  We know this because of another mistake we made (we have made many mistakes in trying to develop this land).  When we installed one of the pumps we sealed up the cap so well that air cannot get in to displace the water.  We realized this when we were running the pump and it was working really hard but little water was coming out of the hose.  It's been years since we have been able to use the pump and now we can finally access it so that we can fix the cap (allow air in).  But this project will have to wait a couple of months - because we are leaving for our eight week road trip on Friday!

We do plan on spending at least another week in this area when we return from the trip and we will try to make more progress then.  All-in-all we have made more progress this year than in the previous 10 years so things are coming along!