Monday, September 08, 2008

Another quick post between classes

What can this man be doing?

Has he gone mad with tractor power?

No...

just that it's time for the Great Outhouse Migration of 2008!


We've moved camp down close to the garage, and will need to have the spiffy biffy closer to our new digs. DH spent the day on Saturday digging a new trench and moving this honey over.


In all honesty, this was a pretty tense process. That little building is HEAVY.


The photos of this are a little bit patchy, but here's the basic progress...



Somehow, through DH's muscle and my - ahem - direction, we managed to tip it off of it's base. Note the stool holding the house up as we tried to position the forks of the tractor to facilitate tipping the outhouse on to them. The boys were rather worried that the stool would fall in!



Just for the record - I've read about outhouse tipping as a prank, in novels, etc., from older times. Having now been part of a very deliberate outhouse tipping, all I can say is that it would take a very determined tipper and a very, very unfortunate tippee. I can't imagine doing this as a prank. The person inside the outhouse would most certainly hear the person on the outside grunting and groaning. Hmmm....I guess those sounds could be mistaken for a bear, in the right circumstances...

I didn't draw a full breath while this thing was on the forks. Every bump and rock was a major obstacle, and DH pulled in all his cosmic driving favours in order to get this driven the 70 or so feet to it's new resting place. My.


Our oldest filmed the journey, something that will certainly go into the family archive.


The in-between phase, of which we have no pictures, is of us moving the foundation (made of 4 X 4's and huge lag bolts) to the new area. This part ended up being accomplished by tipping the foundation so that one end rested on the truck bed...and I carried the other end while DH drove the truck (again slowly and carefully) to the new spot. We got it unloaded and placed there (reasonably levelled), then unloaded the outhouse and wiggled it onto it's new resting place.


Voila! Here it is, in the woods at the back of the land, closer to our new camp.



DH said that the slight bit that it's off - level is going to bother him, but honestly, after moving that thing, the last thing I'm worried about is it tipping over in the wind!


Yesterday was spent trenching the newly levelled driveway in order to run the electrical, the cable and the internet connection all through underground from the pole to the house, then to the garage.


The electrician is there again today working with DH to get the wiring into the garage.

The house is completed to the top of the 1st story, minus the concrete pour (which should happen on Wednesday).

Here's how it all looks right now, as of last evening, before we went to the pool for a swim, soak and shower. That can and should become a welcome little weekly ritual! Currently DH is still showering in Nelson at the aquatic centre, and I'm showering at the gym at the college. Yeah. Hot water. Indoors. Yeah.

It sure doesn't take much to make us happy these days...

And if your partner ever asks you if you think you should buy a tractor, just say 'heck yeah'. Ours has been a tremendously good investment so far.

:)

Lisa

4 comments:

Suzanne Earley said...

what an adventure you are having.

i laughed right out loud at the bit about the outhouse tipping and the possibility of it being a bear. lol

Debra Dixon said...

Read this part of the adventure with a smile on my face!

Anonymous said...

Property development often produces amusing stories around out houses, hey there's a book idea! I still use ours that we put in 18 years ago, deep hole. We also moved ours but it was light enough to tip into a pickup. Yeah, tractors good. Ed

Anonymous said...

What a grouse dunny!! heh heh ... sorry, couldn't help myself... that would be an Aussie way of saying... what a very nice outhouse!! Great blog!! Lx