Up In The Air, part 3

There was some exciting advancement today, so I'm a little pumped to pick up the tale.

The Friday before Memorial Day, the contractor had a Bobcat in to begin the preparation. They wiped out the front and side-of-house garden, began chewing up the yard, took out window wells at the basement windows, and generally removed things which would be in the way as they prepped and lifted the house. Of course, it rained during the weekend, and the changed slopes conducted water to the leaky old windows and the leaky old walls, and we had some water in the basement. I just swept it to the dirt spot.

During the last week of May, the house went up. The house mover came Tuesday (Monday holiday, of course) and knocked holes in the old basement to make room for girders. Wednesday they raised the house, ripped off the front porch, and began demolishing the old basement. We had to enter the back door by putting a footstool on the back porch, and we had no water or toilets. We left the pets in the house - the dog figured out how to use the footstool to get in and out - and went to the Super 8 for the night. I ran over Thursday morning and walked the dog, and got her back in, then went back to the motel and we left for work from there. Thursday they removed the back porch, part of the basement enlargement, and we needed a five-foot ladder to get into the back door. Lucy jumped out just fine, but it was drippy and the 80-pound dog didn't want to be lifted in by someone on the brink of a big hole in the rain, so we went back to the Super 8 and paid the fee for pets (actually not - they forgot to put it on the bill). Now it gets fun: we had checked in, and Wendy was walking Lucy to our second floor room, I was in the lobby with our overnight bags, and bam! a bolt of lightning, a crack of thunder almost simultaneously, and all of the north side of town lost power. So, to recap: the house had electricity, but no water or toilet, and we couldn't get the dog in, but the motel had no power. The three of us sat in the room, watched the lightning, and laughed. Well, maybe not Lucy, but she jumped up on a bed and didn't move all night. Power was back in 20 minutes. Lucy did pretty well in the dining area: McDonald's cheeseburger Thursday night, hotel make-your-own waffle Friday morning. She spent the day at a neighbor's with her dog friend Miles.

By Friday evening, they had patched in a water connection and some PVC for toilets, and hung the water heater on one of the cribs (stacks of railroad ties used to hold the girders on which the house sits. Looks a bit like one of the wonderful campfire stacks from Boy Scout Camp, or something out of big Lincoln Logs). The contractor had to come back and turn the water ON, and turn the water heater outflow valve ON, but we were somewhat home. We also had a jury-rigged, steepish ramp up to the front door. Once he climbed up a 12-foot ladder to come in the back door and unlock the front door, we were even more home. Hey, we had power, cable and internet - it took yet another contractor visit to find and hook up our cable phone modem - and we could shower and pee. Lucy needed about a day to get used to the ramp, but she is handling it well. We've been in the house ever since.

Bobcat work and demolition was going on Thursday and Friday, but wasn't quite done, so we sat another weekend with demolition crap and heaps of dirt in the yard. You may know that this has been a cool, rainy spring; we haven't suffered the horrible excess of rain and flooding that begins about 60 miles south, but any rain made our lot a sea of mud. During the moving and excavation process, our driveway was covered in dirt to protect the concrete, but that just made our mud sea larger. Wendy's bike, our garbage cans, and much of the brick from our entry sidewalk resided in our neighbr's yard (we're mowing it for him this summer - we owe him!).