March 21, 2007 Studio Ground Breaking

Continuing my look back at blogs in Y!360 I came upon one of the ones I considered really important for a number of reasons not the least of which is possible evidence on the contractor suit resulting in the building of my Studio.

The contractor, not computer literate, has no idea that the progress on this project was witnessed by thousands as I dutifully posted updates. This was day one. And I hired the backhole to dig the foundation.


Ground Breaking News

Backhoe showed up on time. Among contractors here in the high country that in itself is earth shaking news. But then he was just up on the highway and didn't have far to travel. Even more important my contractor showed up on time to layout the plans.

Well, not actually the plans. Those he left in the pickup with the building permit. But then we are revising the foundation plans.

The backhoe owner also does landscaping so while I had him captive on my property we negotiated some improvements to my driveway. This may be why contractors are always late here. You hire them for one job and while you have them you keep adding on more tasks. As an electrician I see this all the time. We seldom get off site in a timely manner ergo we are late to the next scheduled job.

Spring time is a good time to begin. Most people that have to negotiate construction loans are not ready to begin until June or July. Nobody has worked because of the long hard winter and so they are all hungry. And eager which I suppose explains them showing up on time this morning.

The really good news, since I am a gardener, is the piles of rich, dark top soil the backhoe dug up of the trenches for the footings. I am already planning my new herb and lettuce beds.

It took until the next summer to get those new beds built and my first crop of lettuce and herbs. Construction requires such energy and time even when all you are doing is overseeing the process, but to keep costs down I was doing some of the manual work myself and also hiring subcontractors to avoid paying 15%.

Blogs are not merely journals but records of our path through life.