Construction resumes, day one

We eventually got the appraisal from Wells Fargo, which was appalling and humbling, and didn't help us. We decided that rather than appeal it, we'd pursue other financing.

We started to feel like those people we read about in the paper all the time. People who did nothing wrong and didn't get caught up in the housing boom. People who now want to put ailing construction workers to work, people who can afford to, people who have good credit and have always paid their bills, but can't get financing. In short, we are now part of the crisis in liquidity that became one of the fallout from the housing crisis.

We applied for financing with Chase and got conditional approval. The condition, of course, being a home appraisal. The process would take 20 days on a fast track.

Meanwhile, Anderson was telling us we needed to get the doors and windows we had bought out of their warehouse. Gerald had the idea that if we could install the portion of flooring above our garage, we could at least secure the garage and store them there. So he scrambled to pull together the materials and labor with the hope of getting that accomplished on Saturday.

Christy's fiancee, Joe, had just bought a truck for his business. Normally, Joe matches up loads with trucks that are owned by someone else, but owning his own truck would put him in a different class. So Gerald "hired" him to haul some lumber up from Home Depot. Christy told him he'd better not take many clients like us, or they'd go broke, as he was working for no more than gas money. But Joe was still excited as this would be the first load in his new truck.

Gerald also bought some lumber from a lumber mill in Prescott, which was delivered Saturday. He also bought these overalls at Home Depot and modeled them before work began on Saturday morning. Bubba also modeled his ranch attire. I thought they both looked very handsome.

This is what the garage looked like before work started.













For the day, Gerald hired some help: J.C. Campbell (in the cowboy hat), who had done some brushing and backhoe work for us previously, and Mike Russell, our builder's retired father. Joe (right) volunteered his services.

Unfortunately, the morning was slow going. There was much angst about the measurements not being square, and many calls between Mike and Paul, our builder who was in Missouri, to discuss what to do about it. By mid-morning, frustrations ran high. Many on the crew thought Mike was being overly exacting. Also, temperatures were in the mid-90s, which didn't improve things.

On the brighter side, I'm happy to report that the wasp trap that Clay Thompson recommended in his column in The Republic worked very well. Our trap was packed with dead wasps. We discovered Kilt Lifter beer by Four Peaks Brewery also worked well. After noticing that her beer seemed to be attracting wasps, Christy left a half-full bottle out as a trap, and it was soon full of floaters.

Unfortunately the wasp factory seemed inexhaustible and, for some reason, they loved the garage. There were dozens of them flying around. The men talked about how it was a wonder no one got stung. Joe said one even flew up his pants, but then flew out again. It didn't make for good morale. Christy found that a butterfly net worked well and set about clearing the site. I had to put my camera on the sports setting to capture the action.

The men worked until it was dark, almost until 8 p.m., yet it seemed they had barely made a dent and J.C. and Mike would not be available to work on Sunday.