White Elephant

You know you live in the sticks when on realizing the little saw had been left overnight by the road, my first thought is I hope the neighbors didn't see it.

No pictures, but I worked along the river yesterday morning. The wife wasn't super happy that I had been working on the creek road when we don't really sucker fish. She suggested that I work on something that she wanted done. Like clearing the river bank.

Called the biggest house mover in the area this morning about leveling the house. They are sending someone out in the morning. Hoping the quote comes in under $5K. We are getting a ton of rain, and there is a small leak in the bathroom. Want to get going on the roof soon so it doesn't have to be tarped again.

The house lifting guy had the flu, so he hasn't came. We had the flu too, so we haven't called to see when he might be coming.

L. is coming tomorrow to get a load. They said that other than boats, this would likely be the last load.

I had got the permit for the electrical on 12/4/19, and he had not come out to inspect. I knew he had retired at the end of the year, so we called last week, and they sent someone out the same day. Another county is helping out for now until we hire someone. He did say now the code is to have two grounds, but he passed it anyway. Waiting on the power company now.

too larry said:

I had got the permit for the electrical on 12/4/19, and he had not come out to inspect. I knew he had retired at the end of the year, so we called last week, and they sent someone out the same day. Another county is helping out for now until we hire someone. He did say now the code is to have two grounds, but he passed it anyway. Waiting on the power company now.

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now now now

Write often?

too larry said:

I had got the permit for the electrical on 12/4/19, and he had not come out to inspect. I knew he had retired at the end of the year, so we called last week, and they sent someone out the same day. Another county is helping out for now until we hire someone. He did say now the code is to have two grounds, but he passed it anyway. Waiting on the power company now.

Click to expand...

Nice

L got the box trailer yesterday. He said he is going to leave the kayak, but the last time his wife was there, she said that she wanted it. So we will wait and see. His mom does want the two battery powered boats in the barn, but doesn't have anywhere to store them now.

I stayed at the river house last night, and got started boxing up wine glasses, shot glasses and tumblers down in my end. Not much shelf space, so 90% of the glasses need to go.

The house lifting guy called just as I was leaving for work. We are going to try for in the morning. If we can't work that out, then on Monday.

The house leveling guy came out this morning. He made extensive notes and took lots of pictures. He said it would be at least next weekend before he could give us a quote. He did say it would be labor intensive due to the floor joist nailed to the pilings. He also said if we were to raise the whole house, we would have to pour footers and used concrete blocks.

Like just about everyone else, when he saw we had paid, he offered to buy it.

We called the power company this morning. Should be getting the power hooked to the pumphouse soon. It will be nice to do laundry down there. Been slowly going through the closets and taking all the bed linens and such to the house for washing.

We boxed up two big boxes of Reader's Digest Condensed books for the thrift stores. Lot's more to go. Several of the shelves are two rows deep. There are some books in my end that I want to save, but I would like them to be with the others.

Yesterday when the wife and I were down at the river house walking, a guy came out from the power company to see what all they would need to hook up the pumphouse power. Today I saw a power company boom truck head that way. Didn't have time to run down and see, but I'm betting I have power to the pump. I will need to turn it on and see how the pipes hold up. It's been about 16 months since they have been pressurized. Hope there will be no leaks.

Haven't done much but box up wine glasses, books and some clothes the last couple of weeks. Other than "camping" I mean. I'm still staying down there most nights I'm not working.

The guys came out yesterday and got the power turned on to the pump. No leaks, but the toilet in my end does moan. Even with all the high winds last night the toilet kept me awake more.

Crazy high winds today. All the blue tarps were still in place when I left this morning, but it was bad all day. Will need to run down and check on things in the morning. But late night tonight and an early {relatively speaking} day tomorrow.

I'm cursed and blessed with a love of numbers. We've got most of our W2's, so I figured I would figure what % of our yearly income we had spent on the river house so far.

In rough numbers I made 35'ish, the wife's retirement was 60'ish with 5'ish in interest. So just a hair over 100K Nothing like nice round numbers to make the math easier.

House 85.5K
Contents 1.5K
Tax, tittle prep 1.2K
Tree removal 8.5K


Pumphouse
Parts and labor 336 + weed
Permit 155

Total 97.2K or 97.2% of our total income this year. We've gone through most of our ready cash, and will be waiting a month or so before we get to the next round of spending. And of course the longer we wait on the big stuff, the more we will have made in the interim.

In other money news. The light bill has been around 50-60 bucks. The pumphouse meter will be another 25 or so per month. Not too bad. Right now the plan for TV is to buy an outside antenna {75) and the Dish Go (100 bucks). You record from your Hopper and can hook it to any TV. Dish Anywhere requires wifi and we are still undecided about what to do there. For now the wife is using her phone's data.

We got the house leveling quote. 17.7K, half up front. That is cutting the pilings just under the house, putting in wood spacers and strapping everything back in place. Would cost almost twice that to cut the floor joist instead. And 60K+ to raise the house two feet.

Will be about a week after we sign the contract and pay the deposit for them to start. And about a week to do the job. Hoping for a slow couple of weeks at work when it happens. Will need to be down there as much as possible.

I've been slowly buying bowls, bongs, one hitters, rolling papers and what not for the river house. Also building up a stash down there. With the crew that is coming in to do the leveling, I think it would be prudent to move all that to one of my camps for safe keeping. The river camp is in walking distance, so it's the leading candidate for now. As high as I've been getting down there lately, walking a mile to burn one might not be a bad idea. Instead of the 3-5 miles I used to do on camp nights, now I walk to the pavement and back. About 2 miles round trip. Lots of night I just use a little day pack. Skate.

Maybe the most important river house news yet. I ordered an outside antennae on Amazon this morning. 42 bucks. I can foresee the return of PBS into my life.

This was from a few days ago. River and slough have both gone down a bit since.

Last night I looked for my 500 pack of Raw Rolling Papers for half an hour before I found them. Did not remember putting them there until I saw them. I'm not yet 60, so I had better hang on for a rocky road going forward.

For the first time ever, I'm taking grow notes in the field. Couple of times last season I wasn't sure what I had done once I was back inside. Having a gross of strains does not help.

After I found my papers. had smoked a joint of #13 Random Bud X TPD and walked to the pavement and back, me and Elvis worked on getting breakables protected using olive drab towels and old LP's.