May 24, 2007

Well, old man winter is having a good laugh and I'm starting to think it's personal. He’s hanging on like you wouldn’t believe! We stopped for dinner last night before going back to the tepee because the weather all day was cold, gray and dreary. We're not very fond of cooking in the shed while freezing our butts off. After dinner we drove home and before we knew it, it was snowing gangbusters. We headed straight for the shelter of the tepee with our laptop and a movie in hand to occupy our time until we went to bed. That’s our form of entertainment on occasion when the weather is crappy (no internet, or satellite TV at the tepee you know). 2 hours later the battery on the laptop ran out just as the movie was climaxing! Bummer! Oh well. We’ll just have to finish watching it tonight. So we peeked our head out the tepee door to check out how much snow had fallen. Holy snow! 6 inches had fallen and it was still coming down strong. So at 10:00 at night we put on our boots and grabbed a shovel and broom to dig out the tepee and sweep the snow off of it. It was a heavy snow which makes the poles creak under the weight and we were a little worried about it caving in. I was sweeping snow off the tepee and having a good laugh at the circumstance. Here it is almost Memorial Day weekend when outdoor pools are supposed to open for the summer and we’re 6” deep in snow! We didn’t need to experience the winter months in the tepee because we ARE experiencing it now. Kirk and I laughed and agreed that sometimes even we think we’re crazy!! I have to say that I haven’t regretted a day though because I know someday I’ll look back on this time while sitting on my comfy couch in my warm living room watching the snow fall outside with a smile on my face...remembering the “pioneer” days of our lives.

On another note, the other day I received a forwarded email from my friend here in BV. It was an email from a guy who is currently wintering at the South Pole. It was really interesting to read his email and have flashbacks of writing about similar experiences and feelings to my friends and family. It was also funny that I had already seen some of the pictures attached to his email because I am still in contact with a few people that are currently wintering with him as well. Small world! That email brought up a conversation between Kirk and I. We talked about how we don’t have a lot of nostalgia about the Pole. We read these things and look at the pictures and say to ourselves, “Yep, I remember that”. And then we think, “Thank God that I’m not there anymore”. One of our friends is the PA at Pole again this winter which will be her fourth. She is the only woman to have wintered four times! Apparently I am one of 19 women who wintered twice. I read that on her blog. Goes to show you that I'm part of a small pool of other crazies. It's good to know I'm not alone. Hee hee! If you’d like to read more adventures from the Pole go to www.homelessheidi.blogspot.com.

First Wildflower

South & West Elevations

North & East Elevations

Floor Plan

May 22, 2007

Whew! Things have continued to be a little nutty. Work has been steady keeping us very occupied. We finally have a small break in our work load since sending out one of our larger projects last week. We have a couple of small things in the works, but hopefully we can still manage those along with building the house. Speaking of the house, we really did submit our house plans for permit believe it or not. Looking back on previous blogs we kept saying “soon…soon” and soon was over one year later! We went through so many iterations on our house plans before finally deciding on a 1423 square foot ranch style house that will be constructed of dry stacked concrete block and engineered trusses for the roof. We’re trying to keep it as simple as possible so we can succeed in building it ourselves.

We submitted our drawings to the building department May 9^th and heard back from them yesterday. In Park County they have never seen dry stacked concrete block construction before so as of our conversation with them yesterday they sounded as if they might reject our plans without a structural stamp. Usually this type of house would not require a structural stamp, but would in this case because they were unfamiliar with it. Kirk asked if he could stamp our drawings since he’s a licensed mechanical engineer, but this guy wouldn’t budge. We were pretty frustrated as we have done a lot of research to support using this method and had to point out that it is actually acceptable per the International Building Code. Fortunately we talked to the inspector again this morning and he was much more agreeable after finding it in the Code as we pointed out. He totally changed his tune and told Kirk he would have to come to the Building Department to stamp the drawings and then we could pull our permit. We offered to send him our researched documentation as well, which he said he would be more than happy to look over. Apparently they will be opening a file on our house since it is a new type of construction for them to observe. So YAY! We will have a permit this week after all!

We had originally planned on excavating the foundation this past weekend but decided we better wait until we had our permit. Our plans show the minimum foundation depth and we wanted to be sure they would accept that. As soon as we have that permit in our hands we’ll be scheduling the excavation! We work in the same building as a contractor who has offered to help us. Originally he offered to test an excavator on our property which meant that we wouldn’t have to pay anything to excavate, but we found out the other day that it won’t work out. So we’ll have to rent one to use instead which is fine since they will still be coming out to help us run the equipment and we really want to learn how to do it ourselves. It may or may not be cheaper than just paying an excavating company to do it all since renting equipment can tend to be expensive too….we’ll see.

Living back at the tepee has been good so far for the most part. The one major complaint we have is the cold. It pretty much hovers around 40 degrees every morning and every night. The thing that makes the difference is the humidity and boy have we had our share of it. It snowed on us several times in the past month, the last time being May 7^th (two short weeks ago) where we woke up to 6” on the ground. Since then it’s been trying to warm up but the rain comes every afternoon to steal any heat away. There is still a decent amount of snow on the Collegiate Peaks which is a beautiful sight. I can't remember the last time we had snow on the peaks this late in the spring. As I’m writing this I’m looking out my office window watching it snow. I’m wondering if global warming is making this normal desert like place into a wetland! If this keeps up it’s going to be a wet and very green summer. Normally I wouldn’t complain about that, but rain is not very pleasant when living in a tepee. If I had my house built than sure…bring it on! Picky picky...I know. It is nice to see signs of spring though. The wildflowers are starting to bloom around our property and the aspens across the road are finally sprouting their leaves. Love that!

Well, I’ll be posting pictures as the house construction gets underway. If you feel like lending a hand, please come and visit. We’ll provide the food and beer in exchange for any sweat you’d like to give.

Jodi