Footers

Bonnie inspecting the footers last night.

The temporary electric box.

Bonnie and Little Bear after basement excavation.

Our neighbor to the north.

Mille examining the covered leech beds.

Walk-out basement looking toward road.

Gizmo checking out the fall colors.

Footers.

The grapevines are making a come-back - Cabernet Franc.

Traminette

Vidal

The footers have been poured and have passed inspection. We are hopeful that the forms for the basement walls will be put up today. There is a 70% chance of rain late this afternoon into the evening. We think the forms may go up but that the walls will not be poured.

As you can tell from the photos, the cottage is very small...cozy is our preferred word. We have also uploaded photos of the rejuvinated grapevines.

The log home in the one photo looks like it should be the lodge for Camp Timber Lake. Our little cottage will look like the servant's quarters for the log home. This is a beautiful log home, very spacious, and would make a wonderful B&B. It wasn't completed when the owner, our neighbor Richard, had it up for sale with a very hefty price tag on it. We have had a tour, compliments of Richard, and it has a wonderful, open feel to it. No fireplace. A home like this should have several fireplaces.

Our neighbors to the south are Denny and Barbara Dull. Their home is equally impressive. It is underground. We have also had a tour of this lovely home. In some of the previous photos you can see Denny's huge white pole building that houses his camper, his car and van, and his woodworking shop. You may also notice a building with a round roof. That would be Denny's observatory. Near the observatory is a small outbuilding where Denny has graciously allowed us to house our tiller until we can have a building of our own constructed. See first photo in previous blog for distance shots of Denny and Barb's homestead and also photos from inaugural post. We will upload a photo of the front of Denny's home soon. More about these people in an upcoming Friends and Neighbors blog.

So the work is progressing on the basement and Bonnie wanted made mention the fact that she saved 35% on the windows for the cottage. Builder Mike went to a place in The Fort that sells orphaned windows and more. These are windows that people have ordered and then, for one reason or another, have not used. They can be purchased at a tremendous savings. So we now have more windows for 35% less money than the original estimate which included no windows for the front porch. By buying the orphaned windows we now have windows for the porch. Kathy's favorite window (sight unseen) is going to be the huge window that takes up the whole south wall of the cottage and overlooks the vineyard.