July 28: Happy Birthday, Baby Losure!

It's a Boy!

Hello! It's Mari (Heidi's sister). I was sent an invitation to be a guest blogger in Heidi's absence, along with Dave and his Mom Mary--notice the 'y'. Since I am the only one with baby photos in my possession AND access to a computer, I thought I'd give "blogging" a try.


Every so often the girls and I load up the van and head north to the farm for an afternoon of berry picking, playing, cooking, sleeping or whatever.


Over a month ago on one such afternoon Sofia greeted us at the door and stated with a giggle, "My baby brother is coming today!" That day, it wasn't meant to be. This morning, however, she could have made the announcement with complete accuracy.


Baby Erik was born at 7:24 a.m. this morning via C-Section, weighing 7 lbs. 12 oz, 19 3/4" long and cute as a button. This one might turn out to be quite intelligent too--the Dr. says he has a big head (14 1/2")--closer to the average head circumference of a typical 9 lb. baby!


Mom and Baby are doing fine. Dad, too! Dave asked Sofia, "Should we take this baby home?" She thought that would be alright.


Here he is again, this time in Daddy's arms. So precious!

JULY 27 UPDATE: Another wall

Here's just a quick update -- I've got to get to bed. Early (and exciting) morning for everybody!


Dave got the grouting done on the tile pad. Looks good!


Dave and Dad got the south wall of the addition up this evening -- though it took some brute strength. This wall was heavier than the other, and Dave didn't notice until it was a little too late that he had built it upside down, making it a little more difficult to lift into place. But they got it, a little at a time.
There was a little bit a muttered cussing about here ...


And here it's in place. Sofia actually took this picture. Not bad for a little person!


And it's up, and braced! Yay!

... And we're off to bed. Wish us all luck!

JULY 26 UPDATE: A wall!

The addition is starting to shape up, isn't it?

Dave and Dad got that north wall up before supper tonight. Dave had gotten the floor joists put in yesterday, and he got the decking down earlier today. Not bad for a couple days' work, I'd say!



He hit a snag this evening, though: He thought he had ordered 16-foot boards to continue the wall, but he got them out and they are only 14 feet long. Either he misordered or the lumberyard delivered the wrong ones. In any case he had to alter his work plan for the evening.

He's trying to get as much done as he can this weekend, since we'll both be spending time at the hospital next week! I decided to just go ahead with the C-section -- the baby is still growing, now measuring at between what a baby would be at 41 and 42 weeks (40 weeks is term). And there's been no progress at all toward labor. Who knows how big this kid could get before I'd deliver naturally? And July 28 sounds like a good birthday to me.

So, Monday morning, bright and early, a baby boy comes into the world! ... We'll get some pictures onto the blog as soon as we can, but I'm not sure I can train anyone else to post for me, and I doubt I'll be up for posting for a while. The world will just have to wait a few days to catch a glimpse of this one!

JULY 24 UPDATE: They came, they sprayed

A person could notice two different kinds of spray at the farm this evening. The one more evident was the one the dogs encountered -- they apparently found a skunk somewhere, and with no breeze blowing this evening, the yard and our canines truly reek. Ugh. I guess they're going to need another bath -- we just gave them a bath a couple weeks ago, the last time they found a skunk.

On a more positive note, the spray foam insulation is all done in the house! Yay!

It's quite a different effect in the house now, since it's such a light color when I look up.

It took the crew all afternoon to finish, and I felt sorry for them -- there was no way they could open the windows, since there was plastic over them, and I'm sure they were cooking in there. But that's their job -- they must be used to it.

It smells a little in the house now. One of the workers said it will take a few days for the smell to fade. This spray foam doesn't have formaldehyde in it, like some of the first spray foams did, but I'm sure it's still a good idea to let it off-gas for a while before we spend much time in the house.

Dave spent a little time in the garden, then came in for supper and was given a night's reprieve from any more work because of a sudden rainstorm. We got three-tenths of an inch -- we could use more, but we'll take what we can get. So the garden was all wet, and the house was fume-y -- so Dave grabbed a book and chilled out for an evening.

We did go for a walk after the squall passed by. There was thunder to the south, but the north sky was clear.


Sofia and Dave had more stamina than I did for walking down the road; I quit at the power lines, but they walked almost to the corner (a half-mile, one way).


When we got back, there was an eerie pink glow reflecting off the cars and the house, a trick of light from these interesting clouds in the southern sky.

... I guess the consensus on bug spray is don't use it! Hopefully once we get the house sealed up we won't have to worry about it anyway.

A little bit of inspiration

At the library the other day, while Sofia was hurrying me to the children's department, I happened to notice a book called "The Smart Approach to Small Space Living," and I snagged it as I rushed by. I always love looking at these design books, and especially those that have small houses in mind.


The book has more information than I can process at the moment -- and in any case, if I start talking about what color I want to paint the walls in the addition before Dave has the walls built, I'm likely to get into trouble. But the text is fun to skim, and the pictures are great fun to daydream with.


It seems our kitchen-tucked-under-the-loft idea is a popular one! I think it will make the kitchen feel cozy to have it under a lower ceiling than the dining room.


Here's another kitchen/dining room area that's similar to our plan -- we'll also have an island with seating on one side. Our dining area won't be nearly that big, though, as the stove and stairs will take up a lot of room.


I liked the look of this room, with its painted wood floor and bed tucked under a slanted wall. (The hand-woven rug is nice, too!) I also like the rustic wood trim in the back -- that's the kind of thing I want to include somehow on the walls, but I'm not sure exactly how we're going to do it. We've used most of the wood we salvaged from the bin teardown already. But wall trim is not a necessity soon, of course, so maybe I'd have time to look around for that kind of thing later -- perhaps from some other old building in the area.


The bottom photo on this page shows just the kind of little nook I want to tuck behind the front door -- a seat with shelving/closet space on both sides. I'd actually like to cover that whole east wall with bookshelves, except where this seat would go and where the windows are.


Finally, I really like these drawers under the stairs. How clever of them! It would be nice if we could do something like this at some intervals in the storage space behind the knee walls upstairs.

... Of course, all this is far down the road. People have asked what color we're going to paint the walls, or where we're going to put the clothesline. Let us get a toilet and lights first, and then I'll start thinking about wall colors or landscaping!

But in the meantime, it is fun to daydream!

JULY 23 UPDATE: Here comes the spray

There have been no posts for a few days! I claim extreme pregnancy as an excuse -- a trip to Aberdeen yesterday just plumb wore me out. And, frankly, there hasn't been a whole lot of photo-worthy action on the house since Sunday.

We got in touch with the spray foam insulation installer, and he stopped by on Monday morning to look at the new house, and then talked with Dave later to give him some ideas about what preparation is needed before he comes to spray the foam.

The biggest thing that needed to happen was the installation of some backer boards to keep foam from going into the roof overhangs, where it isn't needed. ... I was just thinking about the possibility of ice dams, since if the roof is warmer than the overhangs, ice dams along the overhangs might be a problem. Dave says with the spray foam insulation, that's not supposed to be a problem; it keeps the roof cold enough to avoid ice melt. I guess we'll find out!

Anyway, here's a photo of what Dave was working on yesterday (the big red arrow points to the backer boards he installed):

He also had to cover all the windows with plastic. Today he was working on getting the rest of the house cleaned up -- getting all the tools out of the building and covering anything that would not look good with specks of foam all over it.

So, Dave finished all that tonight, and the spray foam installer will be here at 8 tomorrow morning. It's nice to work with someone who's into getting a job done quickly!

We're filling the whole space between the rafters with foam, even though the installer says we only need to fill three inches of it, as the foam is airtight and three inches of foam creates an R value of 21. That may well be, but the recommended R value for cathedral ceilings is 38, and even if the foam is airtight, air transfer and heat transfer are two different things, Dave explained. (Isn't it great he can put that master of science degree to work? :) So we should get in about five and half inches of foam, which should just about hit that R-38 that we're looking for.

We are only doing the slanted ceiling for two reasons: First, it is not at all cheap. Second, it's possible to have a building that's too airtight, which might well happen if we used spray foam for all the walls. We'd need a special air exchanger, I think, especially considering we'll be heating with wood. (We might need that anyway -- we'll look into it.) So the walls will have regular batts of insulation in them.

... We've been debating whether we should do something to kill off bugs before we seal up the walls. This is a buggy place, this rural South Dakota. It seems there's always an infestation of some kind -- every winter the upstairs windows of the farmhouse are covered with attic flies, and this summer the farmhouse is filled with daddy long legs spiders. Yech. There must be a spiders' nest in the basement, I think -- they all showed up about the same time and look about the same. But I'm not generally in favor of spraying nasty chemicals if there's a chance we're going to have to be exposed to them -- better just to commit arachnicide with a book, kleenex or shoe as I see those eight-legged pests.

But what about in the new house, which should be much better sealed off from new infestations than the old farmhouse? There have been bugs in it, of course, as it was an outbuilding with a fair amount of cracks for bugs to get in through -- and I see a lot of spiderwebs even on the newly installed wood. Any thoughts?

... The windows will arrive Friday, August 1, we've been told. And the plumber will be here to work the second week of August. But, of course, there's another arrival that might be more important ...

... No baby news yet, as I'm sure you've guessed already! I've got another appointment Friday, and if that doesn't show any progress toward a natural labor, I'm likely going to have a C-section on Monday, July 28. I'd still like to try a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) but the longer I wait, the bigger this kid gets, and the more likely that his big head is going to cause me problems. I'm not eager for a repeat C-section either, but what I really don't want to happen is to go through hours of difficult labor and end up having a C-section anyway (the worst of both worlds, really) -- so a scheduled C-section seems the lesser of the two evils.

But, hey, who knows, maybe baby wants to arrive in the next four days! Pregnancy really does teach a person to be flexible. Well, not physically, when you get to the point where your belly is as big as mine is, and putting shoes on becomes an Olympic feat. But mentally -- we'll take baby whenever and however seems best for all concerned!

JULY 20 UPDATE: A base

Dave and Don got back to work on the addition this morning, getting the beams that the floor joists will sit on set.


By the end of the day, this is what we had -- level beams! Now come the floor joists, which Dave can put in himself. And the addition gets built up from there.



Up this week: Talking to the man who's going to do the spray-foam insulation in the ceiling, talking to the plumber to see when he can come to do the rough plumbing, and talking to a local construction crew to get an estimate on putting on siding. All work we don't have to do! Of course, we can watch the money getting sucked out of the bank account as the work gets done, but as they say, time is money, and it will be nice to hopefully get some things done during the hours that Dave is working. At his paying job, that is.

Dave is also planning on finishing the grout on the tile for the pad below the stove. Putting the chimney in place will wait a while, since where the chimney ended up means we actually need one more section of chimney pipe. Dave needs to order that section, and it makes more sense to actually have that section before doing the rest of the chimney.

We're moving toward the goal of getting the stove out of the van, but it looks like it might be there for a week or two yet.

... The New York Times had another fun article about the joys of do-it-yourselfing ... or actually, the joys of having do-it-yourself projects televised. I admit I love those shows. I've had them on in the background while I babysat my nieces. They lure you in -- it looks so easy to dress up a room for $300 and a weekend. "Yet in the end DIY (the TV network) thrives on sheer fantasy," as the article notes. We've now learned firsthand it's not so easy! It's not too hard to get a project done when you already know how to do it. It's the learning curve that causes the problems. And the realities of space constraints, old buildings that aren't square, lumber that's not quite straight, and so on.

But hey, the house is getting built! Apparently do-it-yourselfing is possible, even if occasionally our version would make for poor television.

JULY 19 UPDATE: Post problems

This is going to be a quick post, since there's a storm coming and I'll need to shut down the computer.

It did rain last night, but that just made the ground wet enough to make the work more difficult -- work went on as planned.

Well, perhaps I shouldn't say as planned -- there were problems all throughout the day, and the work crew (Dave, Don and Al, for the most part, and Dad was out there too for a while, as was Mary) didn't get as far as Dave had hoped.

Ah, well, many problems are hard to foresee. And Dave has been trying to plan for at least four projects at once lately -- most all of it work he's never done before -- so it's not surprising that a detail or two escaped his notice until he got into the work. I'm not for plans that are too detailed anyway. It seems no matter how well I plan for something, I have to make adjustments along the way in any case -- better just to plan to be flexible.

The biggest problem was that the post-hole digger on the tractor would only make a four-foot-deep hole; the holes, for the posts they were setting, needed to be six feet deep. They solved the problem by welding an extension onto the auger, but they didn't get to that point until about lunchtime. Then, they broke parts about a dozen times and had to fix those, and getting the posts into the holes and square to the building took some time as well.


Don did some of the digging of the holes by hand, but with 10 holes, that wasn't going to be a practical solution.

Don is framed by the new hole for the east door in this photo -- Dave got that all framed in last night, and cut the hole this morning.


By late afternoon they had a system down -- but it was hard work. Looked like chain gang work to me. I started thinking of that first song in "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?" -- where the percussion is provided by heavy hammers hitting rocks.


Mary took a turn with the shovel later in the afternoon. Sofia even got her little plastic garden tools out and started pushing dirt around! (I missed the photo of that. She was oddly being camera shy.)

So, by suppertime, they had all the posts set. Phew! At least that tough job is done. Tomorrow they work on cutting the posts off at the right length, putting beams across the top of them, and laying floor joists on top of that.

JULY 18 UPDATE: Tile!

After much strategizing, the pad that will go under the stove is now tiled! Well, almost -- Dave will still need to put the grout on after it's set for a day or so. But at least we've gotten this far!

And no one is allowed go over there with a ruler and start measuring the tile spacing -- we purchased two different sizes of tile spacers, and neither one was going to work exactly with the 4-foot by 4-foot space, so Dave freehanded it. It's pretty close, but not perfect. Eh. Perfect is overrated anyway.


There was a cool full moon tonight ... made me wish for a tripod, as I couldn't quite get a fully focused picture no matter how I tried to set it up.

Looks like a humming construction zone in the house, doesn't it?

Dave headed to bed soon after finishing the tiling -- a neighbor, Al, will be here to help at 8 in the morning, and Dave has some things he wants to finish before Al gets here. Don and Mary will be here later in the morning also -- we'll see how quickly the addition can come together!

... Of course, Dave did mention that his plan is completely out of whack if it rains tonight ... and I hear thunder. Figures.

JULY 17 UPDATE: Interesting bits from NYT

I worked seven hours at my freelance copy editing job today -- one of the other copy editors is on vacation, so the rest of us picked up extra hours this week -- which doesn't necessarily mean that I was editing for all that time, but I did have to be in the vicinity of the computer quite a lot. So, during breaks when I didn't have stories to edit, I read the New York Times online.

I found a couple stories that were of interest: First the slide show of NYT's regular real estate feature, "What you get for ..." whatever price they have in mind that week -- this week it's $700,000.

Now, we're not building a $700,000 home. Or even a $70,000 one, frankly. But I love looking through the pictures of these houses to see all the cool design ideas.

The best one in this slide show is the house in Virginia, which has a lovely rustic appeal. They obviously thought about passive solar design with the big windows on the south side, and I'd love to do what they did with stone -- I especially admire the soapstone floor. How did they do that, anybody know? Some crazy heavy-duty varnish over the top after they laid the stones?

Of course, putting in stone walls and floors is one of the ideas that makes people around here look at me like I'm insane (one neighbor literally backed slowly out of the room when I brought up asking him for advice on the project) -- and additionally I've had to give up on the idea to preserve marital harmony. But I can admire it in other people's houses in any case.

And speaking of marital harmony, that brings me to the other NYT article, about "emotional architecture" -- basically making sure the home you end up living in reflects how you really want to live. This architect puts potential homeowners through a rigorous process to help them figure out what they really want. (Apparently, people often think they want one thing -- often a home bigger than they need -- and later find out that a smaller home with certain key features is what would really make them happy.)

Now, what the people in the story are doing sounds a little too intense for me, but I did get to thinking about some of the little things I value in a home:

• not feeling like I am stuck in the kitchen when the rest of the family is elsewhere (hence the open kitchen design)
• having all of my shoes belong somewhere near the door I use most often, since that's where they all end up anyway
• an east bedroom (I need all the help I can get with getting up in the morning)
• having storage I can reach easily
• having enough storage space for linens and blankets, so we can pull them out quickly for guests
• a utility sink for washing vegetables before they come in the house, hand-washing laundry, etc.
• good reading lights in the bedroom, and other good spots for reading throughout the house
  
• a root cellar, or other storage space for preserves and potatoes
• a place where I can spread out projects -- a loom, photo albums, sewing machine, etc.
  

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I could think of for now. Thoughts, anyone?

... As far as house progress goes, Dave worked on patching the few cracks in the foundation tonight as he was advised to do. He decided to put off cutting a hole in the roof until a day when he had a little more time to devote to the project.

... Sofia and I picked more currants today. The white currants are perfectly ripe, and we really need to get them harvested. Luckily, Sofia's cousins are coming to visit tomorrow -- we'll set all the girls to picking at some point.

JULY 16 UPDATE: No news

I came away from by doctor's appointment with no news that means much.

We're still not sure if it's going to be a C-section -- the plan is to wait and see until my next appointment, next Tuesday. Nothing is really pointing to the fact that I'd have to have a C-section except the fact that the baby is big, and I'd prefer to have the shorter recovery time of a normal delivery, so we're still going to see if the baby decides to come in the next week and a half or so. But, if he doesn't show up, we also scheduled an operating room time on Monday, July 28.

I could still wait it out past that date, but then it gets more and more likely that I'd labor for some hours and then end up having a C-section anyway when that big head doesn't want to move -- the worst option, in my mind.

So, unless baby decides to get a move on, it's a week and a half or so more of sitting with my feet propped up, it looks like!

... Dave was working on learning how to put down tile this evening. He came to the conclusion that that cheap tile cutter he got isn't going to cut it (literally) for this job, and he needs to get a wet saw. (At least he figured that out now, before frustrating himself with a pile of wrecked tiles.) He's also drawing up a plan for setting up the addition -- his dad and a neighbor will be working on that with him this weekend.

... We got a sprinkling of rain this morning -- enough to turn the windshield wipers on, but not enough to even get the ground under the corn wet, I don't think. A lot of the corn is starting to curl -- not a good sign. But I hear a rumbling of thunder -- maybe we'll still get a dousing tonight.

JULY 15 UPDATE: Under the stove

Isn't this a nice photo? A person could get a nice new sunset photo about every other night here. I did miss seeing sunsets when we lived in town.

I call this photo "Cottonwood Moon."

... Again, there's not a whole lot new to report, or at least to take pictures of, as far as house building goes. Dave's working on getting the pad beneath the stove in the right place, so we did some more careful measuring before Dave put down two different kinds of fireproof boards this evening -- a ceramic board and a cement board -- after Sofia and I came in for the evening. Those 4-foot by 4-foot boards will go under the tile, which will be under the woodstove.

... There's an order in at the lumberyard for all sorts of materials for the addition -- work on that should start this weekend, when Dave's dad comes for another working visit.

... And we've contacted the plumber who will come to do all the rough plumbing work for us. He's new to the community (but an experienced plumber) so hopefully we won't have to wait too long for him to come when we're ready for him.

... We're working on getting estimates for the spray foam insulation we want -- hopefully at least one of the companies should come give us an estimate soon.

... We've been debating how to the roof on the addition: When Walt was here, we had discussed doing a gable roof at the same pitch as the overhangs on the rest of the house -- there was no point in doing a roof as steep as the granary itself, which would simply waste lumber and shingles and make it harder to work on the roof, but we figured matching the pitch of the new overhangs would help the addition look like it went with the rest of the house. The granary roof is at about a 45-degree angle, or a nearly 12:12 rise (it goes up 12 inches for every 12 inches of horizontal length). The overhangs are at a 7:12 rise, or about 30 degrees.

Unfortunately, that presented a bit of a problem. Dave had thought about just building rafters, but roof trusses -- or ready-built rafters with webbing -- turned out to be a much faster, cheaper option. They don't come standard with a 7:12 rise, however, and for a while Dave was trying to convince me to do a 4:12 rise. I plugged that into our architecture program and didn't like the look of it at all -- it looked like two different houses being crammed together. Then he checked into it some more and learned that a 6:12 rise also comes standard. That, plugged into the drawing program, looked much better -- I don't think you'll be able to tell that it's not quite the same as the overhangs.

Phew! That was a relief to me. I'm all for faster and cheaper, but I have a hard time compromising on certain aesthetic principles. And it's tough when I can't explain to Dave exactly why matching roof lines would be better -- it's all the same to him, as long as they function as a roof should. And, it is true that I'm not the one who's going to be hoisting roof trusses up a ladder, so I have to keep that in mind, too.

... So I don't have any new photos of the house, but I do have a couple in-the-house dancing photos I thought I'd share:


Sofia has decided that dancing to Daddy's music in the new house should be a nightly tradition, apparently.

... An aside to Dave and Mary: We figured out that if we took out all the furniture, we could just barely squeeze three squares into the house. Of course, if we really wanted to dance, we could just go a mile and a half to Savo Hall, where we could get at least eight squares going comfortably.

... And, in case you haven't all guessed, no baby news yet. I've got another doctor's appointment tomorrow -- I should know more then.

JULY 13 UPDATE: Chimney details

The last few days of work on the house have involved a lot of thought work, and some shopping -- not too much to take pictures of, or to blog about.


Today, Dave put some of that thought to work, climbing the ladder to start getting the chimney in place. This needs to be done before we can schedule someone to come do the spray foam insulation, which will go into the underside of the roof.

It is a long way up to the peak, and I must admit the rest of the household was a little bit nervous that Dave was working on this by himself. But Dave pointed out that there's not a whole lot another person could do on this job anyway -- he or she would just stand around and watch, since there's only room for one person up on the ladder. And Dave assured me he'd read the installation manual, several times, and talked over the plan with the stove store owner, so the rest of us tried not to worry.


The black box is the lowest part of the chimney -- from there down to the stove will be stove pipe, not chimney pipe. The biggest difference between the two (besides cost -- chimney pipe is much more expensive) is that the chimney is better insulated -- the intent is for as little heat to get out the chimney walls as possible. The stovepipe, on the other hand, is double-walled, and so shouldn't let too much heat escape either, but it's not insulated as well, so some heat will be given off by the stovepipe.

That's my understanding, anyway. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong!

Sofia and I helped Dave put some chalk marks on the floor this afternoon outlining where the stove and the pad under it are going to be. It's a bit of a problem, because the installation manual for the stove calls for having a certain R value of nonflammable material below and for a certain distance around the stove, and getting that R value means a 4-foot by 4-foot area of floor beneath the stove will be a half-inch higher than the rest of the floor. I was worried that might be a trip hazard, so we drew it out on the floor (you might need to click on a the photo to see a larger version to make out the chalk lines).


You can tell there's not a whole lot of room between the blue line that marks the edge of the raised area and the post -- and that's the most logical walkway between the east door and the living area.

What I think we will do is trim off the corner there, about half a tile, cut diagonally -- it will mean the area of greater R value won't be quite as big as the installation instructions call for, but hopefully no one will trip on that corner, either.

Here's a view of stove placement from above (once again, you may need to click on the photo to see the chalk lines). I think it really will look nice, when it's all done, to have the stove as the focal point of the room there -- it's just tricky getting everything into place!

Dave had some John Prine playing, and Sofia got into some dancing when she was done "helping" with the chalk marks.

... The berry bushes just to the west of the new house are bearing. Sofia and her cousins did a surprisingly good job of picking gooseberries and red and white currants on Friday (with some help from their mothers). I was enamored with how pretty those berries are -- in the right light, the white currants look just like little pearls.

We picked enough for three smallish containers for the freezer. I told Sofia we'll get them out this winter, when there's nothing at all green around, and think of summer as we eat them.

JULY 9 UPDATE: Which headline to write?

Here's a chance to exercise my news judgment: Which of the events of the day is more important -- news about the baby, or about a great leap in progress on the house?

Hmmm ... Baby or abode? Incubation or habitation? Womb news or room news?

OK, we'll start with baby, since it is (literally) closer to my heart at the moment.

I had an ultrasound today, and learned that the baby looks very healthy -- but he is going to be a big boy. (I told this news to my dad, and he said he knows, he can tell that much from looking at the outside. Thanks, Dad.)

I was cautioned against putting too much faith in the ultrasound, as it's a "ballpark" figure rather than an exact number, but the ultrasound predicts that now, when I am at 36 1/2 weeks, the baby comes in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces-- more like a baby would weigh at 39 weeks. And I still have some weeks to go, so the baby could gain up to a pound and a half more. (This is likely at least partly due to genetics -- both I and my dad were 10-pound babies.)

And there's more -- the baby's head is bigger than normal, too. While the baby's weight is in the 88th percentile, the baby's head is measuring in the 97th percentile. There are some pretty big hat sizes on Dave's side of the family, and Sofia's head size was also large, so we're not really surprised by this. On the other hand, it makes a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) less likely with every day that passes.

Basically, the doctor said that unless junior decides to show up on his own before I hit 38 weeks, he's going to make his appearance through a scheduled surgery. And second cesareans are scheduled earlier, at 38 weeks, rather than closer to the actual due date.

I have to say I'm pleased with this news. Either I go into labor in the next week and a half or so, or I have a cesarean in about two weeks -- but either way, that's about two weeks early! I wasn't looking forward to nearly another month of this. It has occurred to me that nine months is really a ridiculously long amount of time to be in this condition -- whose idea was this, anyway?

Oh, and the last of the baby news: The ultrasound shows that baby has hair. That's new. Sofia had nothing worth brushing until she was well past a year old. No word on the color yet, though.

... So, on to the big development on the housing scene: The excavators came today!

They called early this morning to say they'd be here at some point today, which was great -- except that I had that doctor's appointment today that I wasn't about to miss. In the end it worked out -- the excavators didn't arrive until later in the afternoon, and in fact pulled in at nearly the same time Dave did, so he did the explaining about where things should be (better him that me with that responsibility).


They were here to hook into the water line, which they did with little trouble ...

... and put in the septic tank and sewer drainage field, which didn't take them long, either.

The drainage field headed out straight east from the house, into the pasture.


The excavators started work just after 4 p.m. and were done by a little after 7. The work we'd waited weeks for them to do took them about three hours.

Of course, that's why we had to wait -- such a piddly job for them had to be fit in where convenient.

So now we can start on the addition! And then, after that is finished (which will, of course, take some time), all sorts of balls get rolling -- hooking up the plumbing, doing the wiring, getting the siding on, etc.

Dave's working on a list of supplies that he'll need for the addition -- he was hoping to have a plan together by tomorrow so he could put in his order at the lumberyard tomorrow, but I think he decided to hold off a bit until he's worked through is plan a bit more.

... In other house news, we found out the windows we were expecting are back ordered -- we shouldn't expect them until the week of July 28. A bummer, but we've got plenty do in the meantime. And we should also be changing diapers by then ...

Gotta love progress!

JULY 7 & 8 UPDATE: The stove is here!

Isn't it pretty? I'm excited about how well it should go with the ceramic floor tiles we bought.

Dave left work a little early yesterday to go to Mandan, ND (about a three-hour drive away) to pick it up. The stove weighs 475 pounds, and the stove store owner had a pretty ingenious way of loading it, Dave said -- basically a furniture dolly with a jack on it. Once it was nearly in the van, Dave and this guy rocked it back and forth a little to get it in place, but Dave said there's no chance of getting it out of the van with that little manpower. The plan is to just leave the stove in the van until the area where it will live in the house is ready for it, so it won't need to be moved twice. (We'll see if we can put off unloading that long -- there's quite a bit of work to do to get that area ready, and it is nice to be able to get the whole crew to a destination in one vehicle, which only works in the van.)

This kind of woodstove (with soapstone on the sides) was hard to find anywhere in the area -- they seem to be manufactured only in Vermont. (There are also very nice ones manufactured in Finland, but those cost over $25k. We could afford that -- if we had decided to live in a used trailer house or RV. Otherwise, it's a little beyond our budget.)


Don got one more window framed up before he and Mary left for home on Monday. He had been hoping to do more, but this one turned out to be tricky -- he had to take down the ledgerboard (across the top) to get that window at the same height as the other south windows and the front door.

He also finished up the last window that he and Dave put in on the north side.

The door on the east side is all framed up, too. Now we just need to go find a door for that spot! We looked at doors at Menards, but nothing seemed right -- everything seemed too new -- nothing to fit in with the "granary charm" I'm after. We're going to call some friends who used to have an antique/architectural salvage shop to see if they might have anything on hand that would work. The trick is that door needs to be 36 inches wide (so we can get furniture into the house in some way), and I have a feeling that older doors were often more narrow than that. We'll see what we can find.

Mary and Sofia once again spent quite a while in the wading pool. Sofia can think of all sorts of ways to play with water -- pouring it from one container to another, taking it to water the flowers, dropping rocks into containers of water, dumping it on her mother's lap ... ah, well, I needed a little cooling off anyway.

Thanks, Mary and Don, for all your help this weekend!

... This little woodpecker has been keeping busy about the place the last few days. He seems to enjoy pecking on the electric poles.


... I was so disgusted with the weather yesterday! There was a 60 percent chance of rain at some point during the day, and after it missed us (besides a few drops) earlier in the day, I was watching blue clouds in the western sky eagerly in the late afternoon. I checked the radar, and sure enough, there was a big mass of rain headed right for us. Then, just 30 miles or so from here, the big mass of rain started to split. Some went north of us, some went south, and all we got was about 15 minutes of strong wind. Hmph. Now there's no significant chance of rain until next Tuesday. The garden -- not mention the crops nearby -- are starting to look pretty thirsty.