Holy Crap!

When Joe, the builder, called last night and listed off everything that was done, I sort of had to have the ground truth. So sure enough when we drove up today we saw this:

Looks more like a domicile.

The roof was on and shingled, it was wrapped, there are windows and doors, the stairs are in, the plumbers and electricians were out and about and Hank Hill, the propane guy came to discuss propane, the clean fuel of choice (actually his name was Chuck).

Whoa!

So were were given our homework assignments: get the fans over here before we leave on vacation (Friday). Yikes. So we bought a big, honking whole house fan that will probably suck in every bug and insect through the screens, including the bane of my existence: buffalo gnats.

View from back, facing "crick".

The lower level, or basement, whatever...will have close to 9 foot ceilings now. So it won't seem like a dungeon, kids, should you come to stay and stay and stay....

The one bad thing is that we will NOT be in by Thanksgiving, most likely it will be early December. Look for an Owen Open House sometime that month. We expect all of you to show up.

Tom taking a shower.

We did lose an alcove in the pantry due to the basement stairs, so I don't know where we will put all 200 of our cookbooks. It's amazing how many course corrections Joe has had to make from the plans. We just trust him. It's a small house, so when you come don't be surprised. The not so big house. I shall not want what I haven't got and all that. Anyway, it will be a cozy 1800 square feet.

We are trying to find a farmer to disc up our future garden, but no luck so far. We did go on a tour of a large organic farm outside of Edwardsville: Biver Farms. It was really cool.

High hoop houses with tomatoes.

Our neighbor, Adam, works part time for them while going to SIU-E. So we got an insiders tour. We met the original land owner and organic farmer: he was a hoot!

It's Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm all over again folks. They also had bees, chickens and horses.

That's all for now. We are going on the Natchez Trace and then visiting friends in Nashville. So I'll be ya'alling as much as Paula Deen. Next post probably won't be until Nov. 1st or so. By then the drywall will be in and then they start the flooring.