More on the sides

It was a short trip this weekend. We came up on Friday and went home on Saturday.

On Friday, Gerald grouted the floor in the guest bathroom.









During the week, Gerald had called Mario, a foreman on the crew that had done our framing, and asked if he'd be interested in siding the high parts of the house that we didn't feel comfortable doing.

Mario showed up at 7:30 on Saturday morning with two other guys, and they got to work. Mario worked on the extension ladder, while another worker guided the tops of the planks from the upper window.




While they were doing that, Gerald and J.C. worked on getting the house ready for the rough-in plumbing and electrical inspection.











By about 3 p.m. Saturday, the crew had put on all the siding except the bats on the back of the house...











...and had started working on the dormers. We left about 4:30 and headed to Rumors restaurant for the Blackhawk Property Owners Association's first board meeting.

Inspections and other woes

The weekend promised to be rainy, so Gerald decided we should take a break from siding to tile the guest bathroom. He had an ulterior motive as well. We were hoping to have an electrical and plumbing inspection and if we passed, he wanted to hook up a toilet.

That was particularly important since our portapotty vendor picked up our porta-john last Thursday without notice. The company decided it wasn't cost effective to come out that far any more.

We arrived on Thursday and set to work calculating what we needed, then Gerald cut all the tiles so we could begin tiling the next day.

With all the tiles pre-cut, the work went quickly.

There was only one thing we knew we still needed to do before the inspector arrived for the plumbing and electrical inspection, and that was to seal up all the drains for the plumbing test.

Gerald couldn't get the shower grates off to plug the drains, but he had an idea. He said it came to him in a vision. He'd put some rubber over the drains, then a piece of wood, then a 5-gallon bucket filled with sand. The water wouldn't be under pressure, so that should work. He got that done, and we thought we were ready.

When the inspector arrived, he didn't look happy. He said we weren't ready for inspection. Not even close. Gerald apologized and asked why not. Whatever it was, we would try to fix it.

The inspector was concerned because our heating system wasn't ready and Yavapai county does heating, electrical and mechanical all in one inspection. Gerald said that he spoke to the head of permitting and explained that our furnace vendor went out of business and it would take time to get that straightened out. That person told us we could do just the electrical and plumbing.

Then the inspector wanted to know why our guest bath was skinned. Gerald said he took photos of what was underneath. "Who said you could use photos?" the inspector wanted to know. Gerald explained that our general contractor, Paul Russell, did.

After a bit, the inspector seemed to soften his attitude. He spent a lot of time with Gerald, explaining what the codes were and why we wouldn't pass.

It's was depressing. Among the things he said was that four of our windows would have to be replaced because they weren't tempered. It was right on the plan, but our general, who ordered the windows, had missed it.

When he was out to do the electrical and plumbing work, Paul also drilled four holes in our ridge beam to accommodate ceiling fans. The inspector pointed out that it says right on the specs that vertical drilling will impair the beam's stability. We would need to get this certified by the manufacturer, or have them tell us how to fix it.

Of course, there were a million little things about the plumbing and electrical that had to be done before we could pass. To make matters worse, Gerald's "vision" failed, and water from the master bath flooded the whole west end of the house.








The next day, we had a crisis of a different type.

Gerald was working on correcting the electrical deficiencies when I came in to tell him that the black water in our travel trailer was full. So now we had no portapotty and we couldn't use the toilet in the "casita."

The whole thing took us by surprise because we had requested that the portapotty people service the trailer when they did the porta-john. Since they were just there on Thursday, it was obvious they hadn't been doing that. When we called the company, the owner said he didn't know we had requested that. We had never been invoiced for it, and so the times it had been emptied, we were basically getting a free service. The bottom line was that he wasn't going to send someone out.

After a few frantic and non-productive phone calls, we decided to relocate the casita next to our own septic system. It was chaos for a while. Gerald couldn't locate the effluent hose. Meanwhile, he gave me more commands than I could execute: secure the interior, find the jack, remove the wheel covers. Before I could get my bearings, the casita was rolling.

The hose was still missing, so Gerald and J.C. contemplated just opening the septic system tank and aiming. Fortunately, the hose was found.

We took the time to level the casita, which it hadn't really been before. We used a level. It was harder than it sounds. The jacks broke, the casita sunk a little, but eventually, we got it pretty well squared away. It wasn't perfect. We had to prop the bathroom door open with a boot, but I didn't have to hold the microwave door open with my head, and no longer felt like I was going to roll out of bed.

Gerald set about making some "improvements," like this "porch." We also redid our "sidewalk" to the house, a path of OSB boards that proved very handy for avoiding knee-deep mud when it rained.

My favorite improvement, was the "reading light" below. Overall, we were very pleased with our new location. It was closer to the house and the fire pit. Plus, when we sat around the fire pit in the evening, our view was no longer impeded by the trailer.

Siding

We had thought we found someone to do our siding for us, but he never showed up to do the work and we couldn't reach him. Meanwhile, we had the material on site and needed to get it up. So Gerald and I spent the next weekend installing siding. Our plan was to install all the siding along the bottom before renting a man lift for what we could not reach from the ground.

The work went quickly. At the end of two days, we had installed all the low siding along the back wall of the house.



We had gotten a disturbing call in the middle of the week concerning our stove. We had bought an Aga stove from Arizona Home Centers several months ago. Because it was a floor display, we got quite a good deal on it. Even better, they said there was no hurry in having it delivered.

Then we got a call to say that they were going out of business. They wanted to know if they could deliver the stove Friday or Saturday. We set it up for Friday, but no one came and all the numbers had been disconnected.

On Saturday, we got a call from someone in Prescott Valley who said he had our stove in his garage. Apparently, the receivership happened faster than they had expected and they weren't able to get everything delivered. Some appliances didn't make it out at all, so we felt grateful that our stove did. Gerald and I picked it up, and J.C. helped unload. It was very heavy.

Sleeping with the president

On Saturday morning, we headed to Prescott for a meeting of the Blackhawk Homeowners Association. It was a big day. Arizona Land and Ranches was to turn over control of the HOA to a newly elected board consisting of three landowners. Gerald had thrown his hat into the ring.

The first part of the meeting, we got to ask questions about the current state of affairs. There are something like 153 parcels in phase three of Ruger Ranch. Arizona Land and Ranches currently owns 13 of them. Six were never put on the market. The HOA has a balance of $166,000, which consists of all the dues collected since the first parcel was sold in September, 2004.

Then the results of the election were read and the three new board members announced. Gerald was one of them. So was our friend Kathleen Stowe, who represented the only full-time household in phase three. We were disappointed that our friend Tom, who lives at the ranch part-time, was not elected, but if he could not be the third board member, we were glad Greg Carr was. We had met Greg a time or two on the road, either coming or going and liked him and his wife Deborah. Greg works for the Pinal County Sheriff's department as an instructor in the mounted division.

The new board members met with the outgoing board from Arizona Land and Ranches then held a brief meeting before we adjourned. At some point, Kathleen came by and told me that I could now legitimately say I was sleeping with the president. I told her I was going to tell everyone I knew. After the meeting, Gerald and I had lunch with Kathleen and Linda at Murphy's to celebrate.

When we got to the land, the solar hot water tank had been installed. It had ended up requiring two additional trips by the Heliocol people, but it was done and had passed inspection.









J.C. was hard at work trying to finish up the rough-in plumbing, so we could call for an inspection of the rough-in plumbing and electric. That would allow us to proceed with insulation, and drywall, so we could set cabinets and things like that.

We'd also be able to hook up a sink and a toilet, which would be one of those "big moments" in the life of our project. With the solar hot water system, we'd even have hot and cold running water. What luxury!

Ringing in the New Year

On New Year's Eve, Gerald and I headed up to Stanton for the annual reenactment of the killing of Charlie Stanton. Stanton was the man for whom the ghost town at the base of Rich Hill is named. He was extremely unpopular. The story goes that his killers were in the process of fleeing town when a marshal told them they should return, there would certainly be a reward.

The show was a lot of fun. It was held in the restored opera house. Every seat for all of the three performances was taken, and some disappointed revelers were turned away at the door.

The weather on New Year's Day was beautiful and sunny, with temperatures in the 60s.

Dave Owen came up on Friday to help Gerald install flue pipe for our fireplace. Gerald really wanted to get some heat in the house. Unfortunately, the roof jack the roofers installed didn't line up with the flue pipe.

I walked in just as Gerald (above) and Dave were contemplating what to do. Gerald contacted Arizona Fireplaces. They had a part that would solve the problem.


Meanwhile, Bubba and I went for a walk. Tracks were everywhere. This track was more than twice the size of Bubba's, making me wonder what it was. A coyote? Bobcat? Something else?










On Saturday, workers from Heliocol came out to install our solar hot water system. We hoped that they would get it all done so we could have hot water, but it turned out they needed to make two trips. So we made plans to meet them the following Friday.

We left with the hope that the following weekend we might finally have heat and hot water, which would make our lives at the land much more comfortable.