It Soon Will Be Christmas!

Yesterday I mentioned that Black Bear broke ground.  Today, I have photos!!!  So exciting to see progress even when we cannot be there.  A big shout out and thanks to Grady Knight for being such a wonderful neighbor and friend and taking progress shots!  He knows it means the world to us and we will be forever in his debt.

A side note about Grady - he does this terrific website www.visitstevens.com that tells you virtually everything about Stevens County Washington, including its history, what to do and see and all the business and events that are happening there!  Check it out.  It's much more extensive than many visitor websites.  His business is to take your old movies on 35mm or VHS and clean them up (professionally, not just copy them) and he produces top quality DVDs to preserve your family or event history at G2 Video.

I have to preserve this photo because it's the first moment of excavation!  How can you not have a picture like this one?  This is the end of virgin land and the beginning of amazement, of history being made, of progress, of someone's future.  This may just look like a baby backhoe in the woods to some people, but to me, it marks the beginning of a whole new life.

Here's the front door of our new home!  Can't you see it?  OK, so I need to post a copy of the plan, but basically you are looking at the front of the house as seen from the south.  There's a garage door on the right and a front door just left of center and two windows left of that.  Upstairs, can you imagine a big window in the center of a steep (10/12 pitch) roof with two smaller windows at each side?  And wait until you see the color!  THAT, I am leaving for a surprise!

If you could look over those trees, you would see a mountain that is actually in British Columbia.  As the crow flies, we are less than 1.5 miles from the Canadian border.  The closest town to our property is Trail, B.C., which by the way has this cool indoor aquatic center for swimming year round.

I assume these big beams are going up next, along the poles on each side.  This is a new type of building for us, although people have been building pole barns for centuries.  Don calls our home "a pole barn on steroids".  The thought and engineering that went into this plan is phenomenal.  (By the way this picture is our eastern view, our driveway and the county road is just in front of that line of trees.  The property across the street is owned by a lumber company, so no neighbors for now.

Here is the view to the south.  We have about 8 acres +/- of meadow to the south.  This is the area where the elk cross the valley in the spring (we are told and have seen pictures), and where the deer come out to play each morning and evening.  Also where we saw the mama moose and her baby in June this year.

When we first bought the property and walked this area, the brush was up past your knees.  After Don and Daniel brush-hogged it in June, it looks like a freshly mowed park!

OK, I'm a wee bit excited.  You must know that's to be expected.  But this (life) plan has been in the design phase for some time now and to see progress kind of ignites my nervous system.  Life here in the Springs includes working all day and a trip to the oral surgeon tomorrow morning for wisdom teeth removal for Daniel.  Much more exciting to look at these pictures than to think about that.  But life goes on and I for one am going to bed tonight feeling like soon it will be Christmas - NEWA style!