September 19, 2006

We're making some progress finally! We spent all day Saturday working on our property to get it ready for our site inspection. Several weeks ago we submitted our site plan and other required paperwork to the local Environmental Health Department to acquire our septic and driveway permits. In order to get these permits they have to do a preliminary site inspection to verify that we have an 8 foot deep hole dug where our leech field will be for a soil test, that we put up a post with our address at our driveway location and that we have staked out the house location. Kirk decided he was going to dig the soil test hole by hand which he started several weeks ago. It was a burly task, but I think he felt a sense of accomplishment in doing it himself. He also didn't want to tear up our land by hiring someone to dig it out with heavy equipment. We'll have that problem soon enough. So after several iterations of digging a day here and a day there over the weeks we ended up with a 6 foot hole. Kirk was nervous about digging the next 2 feet because holes like that have been known to cave in and kill people. He braved it anyway and within a couple of hours it looked like he was literally standing in his own grave. Yikes! Then he went to work digging a hole for our address post. That took no time as he is now a professional hole digger. Then we moved on to staking out the house. That was quite a task as we ended up doing it three times. The first time I decided I didn't like the location. It needed to move about 7 feet to incorporate the views better. The second time we moved it too far and somehow our corners were out of square. By the third time we got it just right. It certainly was a struggle though. We are finding this is a common occurrence throughout this process because...go figure...we don't always agree. It probably doesn't help that we are about the two most stubborn people you'd ever meet. We managed to get through it though and finished all these tasks by sundown. We retired to our shed (where we have our camp kitchen set up) to cook dinner and enjoy a cold beer. It was well deserved.

Our site inspection was scheduled for Wednesday September 20th. The next step will be submitting our house plans to the building department, but we can go ahead and get our excavation permit ahead of time which we are considering. We met a couple on our Cataract Canyon raft trip last month who built their own house in Idaho Springs. They offered to rent us their excavator and skid steer so I think we may try to break ground in October weather permitting.

We woke up to frost on the ground this morning and we've definitely felt it cool off in the last week. In fact Saturday night it actually was in the teens. Brrrrr! Thankfully we're still staying warm enough. We have our 2 man tent set up inside the tepee with a futon inside of it. We bundle up inside our down sleeping bags and use extra sleeping bags as blankets. So far it's pretty cozy, but it's not very easy to convince yourself to crawl out of bed in the crisp morning air when you can still see your breath. The patio heater works well for that purpose though. We just have to brave the cold long enough to light the heater and then pretty instantly it warms up inside the tepee.

Sunday (Sept. 17th) Kirk participated in the Banana Belt Mountain Bike Race in Salida. He placed 7th overall and missed placing in the top three of his age division by less than a minute. He is pretty happy with his performance as he should be. He rode in with sponsored riders that were extremely fit! Kirk lost about 30 pounds between our 2 years stint at the South Pole and our 4 month bike trek across SE Asia. He's kept it off and finds his physical performance has increased significantly. He is also pretty proud of his new titanium mountain bike that he purchased through a pro deal at Pole. It was state of the art at the time we bought it, but now of course it's not. The same thing happened to me with my kayak. I bought a brand new one before we left for Pole which was a popular boat at the time. Now it's considered to be outdated. It’s crazy how fast that happens with gear. Although we're happy with what we have and don't feel inclined to purchase anything else.

One thing (among many) that has been really great about living in the mountains is the wildlife. I think I've gained a real appreciation for wildlife after not having any (unless you can count Polies in that category) for 2 years in Antarctica. Every time I see a non domesticated animal now I "ohhh and awwww"! I love seeing deer, bunnies, squirrels, birds and llamas every day (we pass a llama farm every day about a mile from our property). Recently we saw a huge owl fly above the truck as we passed the llama farm and another evening a badger ran out in front of us. Those are two animals I’ve never seen in the wild so that was pretty cool. I think my excitement also comes from the fact that I grew up a city girl so all of this is still new and exciting to me.