Day 5, Monday 8/6/01

Laurie got up early because she had work today. She left, but 10 minutes later she came back. She decided to take a day off and stay with me one more day. We went back to sleep for a while. Got up around 9:30, had pancakes. Feeling a little tired today. Slow starting. Laurie and I made the driveway a circle. We will be able to pull in front of the cabin and then pull straight out with out baking up. It will also make it easier to plow snow and gives us extra parking. Naturally, we burned all the brush.

I am having major guilt about all the trees I am cutting down. I seriously under estimated the number. Most of the trees are small and wouldn’t get big anyway because they are in the shade of the big trees, I tell myself.

After lunch of leftover chicken Parma for me and salad and tuna for Laurie, we decide to set up batter-boards. We can’t do them all due to well access but we can get a head start. It’s a two person job. The batter boards are 2x4’s driven into the ground with a horizontal one between them. Each corner of the foundation gets 2. After unsuccessfully pounding one into the ground, we realized the futility of trying to drive wood into rock. We head into town to find alternate material. Post hardware has re-bar, which would work but is very expensive there and they don’t have enough of it on hand anyway. We head over to Rowley’s because I know they have re-bar. They are closed. We try liberty Lumber but they are also closed. We debate going to Middletown to Home Depot, but that’s an hour away and by the time we got back we wouldn’t have much time to set them up. We head back to Post to look around some more. I spot metal fence posts and think it’s a good compromise on price and function. We buy $65 worth (16). Laurie insists on paying, some lame excuse about "not paying rent at home…blah blah..". Then she insisted that we walk over to the Rite-Aid to "interact with people". Apparently hardware store folks aren’t people. We buy drinks and magazines and head back to set up batter boards.

The metal stake go in the ground easier, but the must be braced for support. We put up 2 and use the transit to set them to the exact same height and exactly level. These will be used to outline the exact foundation dimensions 20 inches above the ground, in mid air. You need to do this because if you mark it on the ground, the marks get dug up to put in the foundation. You need a reference point but it can’t be on the ground.

First batter-boards:

We work on this until about 9:30 PM. It is tedious to get everything lined up perfectly. I call the well guy and leave a message asking him to call and let me know when to expect him.

10 hours, no rain, 92 degrees