FEB. 22 UPDATE: Get ready, get set -- insulate!

The insulation is nearly all in place in the addition! Dave had a very productive Saturday.

Looking toward the southeast ...

... and toward the northwest.

The insulation says "Thermal and sound control," and it was doing some good already at this stage -- my footfalls didn't echo in the room as they had before. Of course, once we put up drywall, we'll have an echo chamber again! I guess that's one of the reasons people want texture on their walls ... we're still looking into the natural plaster option, which I think will help alleviate the echo-chamber effect as well.


Dave's aiming for the recommended R-value of 49 in the ceiling in the addition, which is accomplished with two layers of insulation -- one R-19 and the other R-30.

... I've been doing some weaving lately! It's a nice stress reliever, really -- watching how the colors blend together as I weave them. I'll post a picture once I've got something off the loom!

FEB. 20 UPDATE: We passed!

Dave says I need to get this blog post up before people start thinking the electrical inspection bombed. Sorry, sorry!

Well, we did pass the rough inspection! Not with a perfect score, but a pass is a pass. Some of the things Dave was worried about (not putting outlets in the knee walls, for example) just got a cursory look and a nod, but he will have to fix a couple things he was hoping the inspector would let slide -- he'll have to add a couple outlets in the kitchen, and he'll have to put in two outdoor outlets.

The biggest problem, however, was with work that the professional electrician had done! Apparently there are two wires in a conduit that, according to South Dakota code, should be separate -- even though Dave questioned this, and the electrician couldn't answer what could possibly go wrong because they are in the same conduit. How they are going to fix this is a big question -- Dave suggested that perhaps the way to fix it is to get a different inspector for the final inspection.

So, on to insulation! Dave got started on putting up the insulation in the addition (which will just have traditional insulation) yesterday.

... We've got a bit of winter weather today -- some light snow and wind. I just felt and heard the house creak as a big gust hit us from the north. A person can't hide from the weather out here, even in the house. Dad has added some more insulation to the house through the years, but the windows are nowhere close to tight -- I can feel a breeze through the kitchen window when we've got a good north wind. And the living room gets a draft when the south wind blows. You can tell which way the wind is blowing by where you find us in the house!

FEB. 16 UPDATE: The light at the end of the wiring tunnel

Well, ready or not, here I come -- so says the electrical inspector, anyway. (Though we did set up this appointment ourselves.) After all sorts of figuring and on-the-job learning, the wiring is done (well, Dave's finishing up as I type) and hopefully, by tonight, we can have our "Thank Heaven The Wiring is Finally Finished" party!

... Once that's done, we can move on to our next conundrum: insulation. I think we've decided to do the spray foam insulation on the walls as well, so we'll need to decide on the kind (open cell, which is water permeable and doesn't have any local installers, or closed cell, which is not water permeable and has at least one local installer) and get someone out here to put it in.

The water-permeable question is really a big one: Water in the walls is what makes a house first unhealthy and later unsound -- and it's a bigger problem the more airtight you try to make the house for energy efficiency's sake. So, do you make the walls tight enough that no water can get in, or do you make them in such a way that if water does get in, it can later get out? The passive house expert we talked to seriously advised the second option, as it is possible that the closed-cell foam could fail in spots at some point, inviting water damage there. But that involves finding someone to install it -- the closest installer is in Fargo, I think.

Back to the ol' computer for more research ...

FEB. 9 UPDATE: Little by little

The view toward Frederick, with the water tower in the distance.

Sofia has a new place to play — snow cleared from the yard was pushed into a pile that Sofia has claimed as her castle. A smaller pile nearby has been dubbed "Ogre Hill." An ogre regularly raids the castle (we take turns playing ogre).

The other day Sofia looked up and said, "Mommy, the moon is looking at me!"



Well, the house: Wiring still isn't quite finished, but Dave made good progress on it this weekend, broken rib and all. All the complicated circuits are in place, tested, and working as they should -- save one (the light above the stairs) that has three switches and involves a lot of climbing. The smoke alarms and baseboard heater wiring is still on the to-do list as well.

But Dave is pretty sure he can finish in the next few days, so he's made an appointment for the electrical inspector to come a week from Tuesday. Progress!

... Sofia was supposed to have her dance class this afternoon, but we didn't make it -- I got the car stuck in slushy mud in the yard. (Note to self: Don't back up downhill, no matter how slight the incline might be.) A good push from Dave when he got home got it out, but by then it was too late for dance class. It's been raining (rain! in February!) steadily all day, set to turn to snow tomorrow, we hear.

... Right now there's a massive puddle in front of the granary. We weren't planning on a pool ... we're hoping we're not getting leakage into the insulation Dave put in under the subfloor. We shouldn't be -- the water isn't that high, and Walt did a fine job on the cement work on the lower portions of the north and south walls -- but a person does worry.

... We did have a bit of a flood already inside. The part of the water pipe that was in the addition froze and broke the fitting on the end. Dave noticed a bit of water on the floor, and as he was unwrapping the pipe (he had surrounded it with insulation) he hit the lever and water sprayed all over. I think he got the lever back to the off position -- then he did a little sprinting into the house to get the water shut off. He got everything fixed, but it involved a trip to Ellendale, then a trip to Aberdeen, and a wasted day.

The house is done! On second thought, that's a little small

I got a new exercise machine last week — I got sick of not being able to get any exercise when the weather is bad, which is more often than not lately — and after Dave put it together (and carried all 150 pounds of it into the house, with his broken rib! I feel a little guilty about that) we had all sorts of left over cardboard odds and ends. Sofia and I decided we would build a house with it. So, on Friday after lunch, while Erik was sleeping, we got it all put together.

There's a sleeping loft, a table and three stools, a couch and a TV, a kitchen counter and shelf, stairs, a door and a window. We finished this house in an hour and a half -- I don't know what's taking Dave so long! (Well, OK, our house should have a bathroom, and electricity. And a roof, come to think of it.)

JAN. 24 UPDATE: A word from Dave

We had nice bright sun dogs (as well as a wind chill advisory) to greet us on Friday morning.

Well, according to the internet it is -19 outside right now, with today's high temperature forecast at 2 degrees. So I figure that is a pretty good excuse to stay in help out with the recently neglected blog for a while.

We are still working on the wiring. It is actually quite close to being done. I need to run cable for the smoke alarm circuit and the baseboard heaters and finish up all the connections on a couple of lighting circuits. It shouldn't take more than a day. Most of the outlet circuits have been tested and there weren't any surprises — everything worked.

The cold weather has really slowed down the work in the granary. The woodstove can get the temperature quite comfortable out there, but it takes several hours so it doesn't work that well to just put in an hour or two after the kids are in bed. The weather also causes a lot of other projects to take priority, mainly keeping the tractor running so we can clear snow, clearing snow, and keeping all the cars out of the ditches and starting.

The ditches are full of snow, so drifts can wind up covering the roads even if we just get a little wind without any new snow. We figured out during the last cold snap that the block heater on the tractor wasn't really working and needed a new cord. Fortunately we could replace it from the outside so we didn't have to drain the block to get at it. It has been nice to be able to work with John on the old tractors and other things around here. Most of the machinery here is older than I am and has a lot of little quirks that he knows all about. Generally when something around here is broken he knows better than I do what needs to be done to fix it, but he sometimes doesn't have the eyesight or hand strength to do it (although it is pretty amazing what he is able to do at 86). So when he works in management and I provide the labor we are able to get most of our problems solved.

We have also been dawdling a bit on finishing the wiring because we have to make some decisions about whether to have bath and kitchen fans. I had been planning on a pretty conventional building plan, with fiberglass insulation and poly vapor barrier and kitchen and bath fans venting both to the outside. Heidi went and called a passive building architect from Minneapolis and he made things complicated. In the buildings he designs he tries to control all of the air coming in and out. He recommends using spray foam insulation and then installing a heat exchanging ventilation system. It is a ducted system that brings in fresh outside air but passes it past the air that is going out in a heat exchanger. The system he recommends won't work in our house because we really don't have anywhere to run large ducts. However, they do make a similar thing that is just like a wall or window mounted air conditioner. This architect was also very much against fiberglass insulation with the poly barrier. He says it winds up trapping too much moisture inside the wall and causing problems later. He admits that plenty of people, including most of the local builders around here, do build that way though. If I was building from scratch I think his ideas would be great, but I don't know how well they would work in a retrofit especially since he uses triple-pane windows and more outside insulation, which we didn't use and can't change now.

We are thinking about doing the spray-foam downstairs but not in the addition. I'm leaning toward installing a bath fan that vents out but just a fan with a filter over the stove — especially since I'd have to cut a stud and put in a header to vent the stove out.

I have a little time to think about it since I broke a rib playing basketball last Sunday. I just thought it was going to bruise, but it started to get kind of painful especially after I spent Tuesday afternoon digging my car out of a snow drift (with some much appreciated help from our neighbor Lauren Witte and his tractor). So I went to the doctor on Wednesday and he said it was broken. I don't have to do much as far as treatment because the bone is held in the right place to heal by the muscle and cartilidge. I just have to avoid being hit in the side again (no basketball) for two weeks. I can work as much as I feel up to, but I think it will be a few days until I want to work on things where I have to stretch my arms over my head much.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Lots of updates

I hope everyone is happy to have ushered in a new year! 2009 should be a good year for the Marttila/Losure clan -- we're still hoping to get into the new house by spring (though spring does technically go until June, the calendar says), we should have a little more time for a garden this year, and there will be another cousin for Sofia and Erik to play with sometime in May -- I'm looking forward to a lot this year!

A happy Christmas was had by all, I'd say. I thought I'd just post a few pictures of our gatherings.

(Except the first Christmas party, at the Marttila farm on Dec. 23 -- for some reason we didn't get our cameras out. Maybe because we had a hectic schedule, with the eating, the churchgoing, the present opening, and work the next day for several of us, along with the Losure clan's departure for points east and south the next day.)

Our Christmas Eve stop was the Losures' in St. Paul, where we entered a neat, cozy home and within a day had created this:

It wasn't quite that bad the whole time we were there -- this was the scene of a seat-cushion "doghouse." But we were pretty good at bringing a little bit Christmas chaos with us as we traveled!

Erik got to meet his Great-Aunt Karen (as well as Great-Uncle Walt, and Uncle Michael). Isn't it awful that it skips right to "great" on the aunts and uncles -- they don't get to be "grand" first? It makes them sound old before their time. If it would do any good, I'd start a protest.


Sofia stayed busy with many activities, including Nerf ball "hunting" in the basement, playing on her new (toy) laptop, reading books, playing on the neighbors' swings, and tea parties with pirates and monsters.


On Sunday morning, we headed down to the Losure farm in Iowa for yet another Christmas gathering. There were several hits of Christmas, including this little combo mirror/brush compact, which, for Sofi, also served as a phone -- she and Great-Uncle Dave made many "phone calls" to each other.

This zebra hat got a lot of attention as well (as you might guess from looking at it). Great-Uncle Dave got himself a funky hat too, and little Erik got one also -- a black hat with orange spikes, including a spiky tail.


There's music everywhere the Losures gather, and Sofia did a little dancing ...

... and a little playing, on her bongo drums.

A snow bunny -- or snowman with bunny ears, depending on whom you ask -- was built also. It didn't stay long, however -- the weather was too nice for just sitting in the sunshine!

One last gift was waiting for Dave when we got home. It's got a bit of a story behind it: Ever since Dave got his master's degree in the spring of 2006, he's been complaining (in jest) that he never got his "Master of Science" T-shirt. (There's a hokey radio skit about a master of science on public radio sometimes, if you've ever heard it. The phrase also has a "He-Man: Master of the Universe" ring to it.)

So, this Christmas, I thought I'd get him something he'd actually asked for. I had it printed by a seller on Etsy, the site where Mom has her shop:

Dave's worn his new T-shirt proudly already. (Though not to work -- he thought that might be a little obnoxious, since no one else there has a master's degree and they might not get the joke.) The peach-colored thing in the middle is a fist, in case you can't tell. I should have make that a little clearer in the design, but it still works, I think. The plant is crown vetch, the invasive species that Dave spent two years of his life studying.

Now to sell a few of these on eBay (for all those other satirical masters of science who studied crown vetch -- it's got to be an underserved market).


And THIS is a picture of a young man who just ROLLED OVER! (For the second time -- it took me a minute to get the camera, so I missed the first one.) He looks a little concerned in this photo, but in general once he gets on his tummy, he's quite pleased with himself.

Mom wrote in her Christmas letter that Erik seems to develop before our eyes, and that seems especially true in the last few days. Erik had two teeth show up on the night before his five-month birthday (Dec. 28). And on New Year's Eve, he rolled over for the first time; sat up in his swing trying to get the little stuffed animals hanging above him (Mommy's got to remember to buckle him in that from now on!); and played for about half an hour in his exersaucer (which is far longer than he's been able to stand up till now), just entertaining himself with the attached toys while we got ready to go to my sister's for an informal New Year's Eve. Today, he showed he is a little man with ambitions -- Dave watched him as he lay on the floor, eyeing the garbage can nearby; then he rolled over so he was within reach of the garbage can, grabbed it and tipped it over! (Then Daddy picked him up and spoiled his fun.) Also new today, he's also standing nearly on his own strength -- Mom and I both noticed that we have to hold him mostly just to help him keep his balance.

It's exciting watching him -- but there's also a fear starting to nag at me as I look at this old crowded farmhouse, summed up in two words: BABY PROOFING ...

Sigh. I'd better get started on that soon -- Erik's growing as we speak!