Adventures of AuntieK: You'd pay for this?

Last week, I was chatting with a friend who lives on the East Coast (we worked together for many years, and now keep in touch by phone). He's one of my biggest fans (thank you!) and talking to him always makes me smile. He was giving me the update on how he and his family fared during Super Storm Sandy (no damage, but now power for 10 days or so). He also wanted a house progress update, and we talked about how we both had childhoods that featured a lot of concrete pouring. And then he said the magic words "I love your posts, Karen. I'd pay to read them." Really? Nuh unh. Well, he did say it, but I think he's nuts. A fan, but nuts (in a good way). It really touched me, tough, as I started this whole Adventure 3-1/2 years ago when I left NJ and moved to Cali as a way to document the 2 week trip and keep in touch with my East Coast Peeps. I guess it worked. Smile.

So what's been happening at DG? A lot more, though we're still not really finished with any one thing. Most prominent in the last week has been continued Deck building. Thanks to M's "crew" (her dad, who's been spending at least part of every weekday helping), it's nearly complete. At least the decking part. But I get ahead of myself.

OOOOhhhh. Footings. With post brackets. Exciting.

After spending Saturday (over a week ago) pouring footings, M and I spent Sunday getting ready for her "crew" to start building the deck on Monday. While I weed whacked around our orchard, M got the footing area leveled out with the tractor, and then we moved on to moving the huge beams that were required for the deck structure. Yes, it's over engineered. The building codes are stupid. We devised an interesting way to move these big guys from the front driveway (where they were delivered) to the back. Think Egyptian.

Walking my Cart Buddy

See those bad boys to the right of me? BIG and heavy.

With a Big Guy loaded

Note, the "driveway paving." Our driveway area is sloped toward the house, and is dirt and gets really really muddy in the rainy season. When we tore the house down, we repurposed the stucco with it's wire backing as kind of an impromptu driveway. It's uneven and looks like a mess, but really keeps the surface from becoming a muddy mess.