new house!

Back in 2014 when we and our daughter and son-in-law sold our adjacent properties in the city, they bought 5 heavily wooded acres on the other side of Wharton from us with the intent to build a cabin in the woods. It would take a year or two but like all plans, life intervened with kids still in school and full time jobs and running out of money. First they cleared some of the land, then they got the well dug, set the piers and beams, got the sub-floor in and even framed a wall or two which took about four years coming out on available weekends when the ground was dry enough. We've had some very wet winters and summers are too brutal. Anyway, they decided to buy a manufactured home around the first of this year and get it on the property with plans to be moved out here by the end of October as they are both ready to be out of the city and all the kids are now out of public school so they got the initial survey to tell them how high the pad had to be (since the Harvey flood, all new homes have to be well above the 100 year flood plain), ordered their house, and built up the pad for the house. Again, plans get altered when you have to wait for services. The septic system still needs to be installed and they have to clear an area for that and they can't get their electricity brought in until January but the house was finished and set to be delivered. It arrived last Wednesday.

I joined them on their property to watch the show. Two men showed up early Wednesday morning with two (small to my way of thinking) remote controlled machines...one was a push/pull and the other was a lift. The house is 14'x 76' and the driver pulling the house got stuck on the last turn before arriving at their driveway, the first 'oh shit' moment, so these two men with their two machines left and before too long, the house arrived in front of the driveway.

Next they disconnected the cab pulling the house on wheels and the driver left leaving the two men and their two machines to back the house into the driveway from the narrow street with deep ditches on either side, the second 'oh shit moment' when it wouldn't make the turn because of two trees.

the corner of the house is inches from that tree and won't clear it...yet

Once they had it on the property, they had to turn it again and get it up the slope and onto the pad.

They didn't get it perfectly centered and while the pad was hard in the middle, it was really soft on one side and halfway up, the wheels on that side sank so deep the house would not move further forward or backward, the third 'oh shit' moment.

But these guys were good. They would push or pull, lift or lower, filled in the ruts and got plywood under the wheels and got the house all the way onto the pad.

success!

My daughter in her new house.

The guy who will set it on blocks and level it is supposed to come out sometime today (Friday).

They still plan to build their cabin once out here and not paying the exorbitant rent they pay for the crappy house in the city they have been living in for the past 5 years and once done, the manufactured home will become guest quarters for visiting children and their friends or perhaps for their oldest and youngest who are still living at home (the twins are away at college) if they still live out there by the time the cabin is finished.

So that was the big excitement for this week. I'm still plugging away trying to get ornaments made and getting the feathers mounted and still have a small bit of grinding on the inlay for the heron box and then I'll be ready to start gluing it all together.