Week One... Dirt, Dirt and More Dirt

This is actually the second house blog I've created. The first one got started back in January, when Ian and I first moved out to the farm. We spent New Year's Day cutting down trees and moving brush with Dad and Charles, and were so exicted that we had to tell everybody about it. And then... we didn't do anything with the land... for a long, long time. We spent the first eight months of the year coming up with an awesome house plan and spending hours trying to figure out the most effective use of space, where all the appliances should be located, and (most importantly?) what walls would we need to move in order to make room for a pool table.

So now, fast forward from January to the end of September; we got Amanda and Charles married off on Saturday, slept and recovered all day Sunday and on Monday morning Ian and I stood back and watched the road to our house take shape. Maybe we're easily impressed, but in one week the lot looks so different. Bill Johnson, our bulldozer guy has found some super cool rock formations (see pictures) created this groovy winding road up from the main road to where the house will be (more pictures), and is totally an artist... with dirt... (I need to Photoshop a picture of Bill wearing a jaunty beret and holding a paintbrush...)

He has taken out some trees in the process, and even though it looks better, I can't help but feel badly for all the ugly little elm trees. They just look crummy next to the semi-majestic oak trees, so it seems like they're always the first to go.

Also this week, we signed an *official* contract with our builder. This was a weirdly terrifying but quite satisfying experience. Also terrifying and perhaps slightly less satisfying was writing the first of many, many large checks.

Captions for photos:

1: strolling up the road to where our house will be.

2: looking down towards the main road

3: Bill the bulldozer guy, working on where our house will be.

4: Fabulous Ian and the equally fabulous rock formations.