After flying back from Texas it was time to head north to Idaho to begin our next big project; building the first pieces of “The Ranch” on the 10 acres of land we bought on the Camas Prairie in Idaho. We’re not completely done with sailing, but you have to land somewhere.
We arrived just as spring prom was underway at the high school. So our niece Brianna and nephews Brayden and Levi were doing the town.
But it was time to build
The first step in breaking out new land is to get a culvert permit, put it in the borrow ditch, and cover it with road bed gravel. Joshua and his skidstear were the key to this operation.
Once that’s in place you’re ready to start hauling in gravel to dump between the flags that outline the driveway and the parking pad.
A few days later, my brother Dennis and his wife Carol showed up with their trailer so Dennis could help me with the foundation for the pump house. They also were bringing our two dogs back to us. That’s enough time apart.
Now we had planned to put up the forms and call in a cement truck. That was the plan. But after calling every cement company in Southern Idaho we found they were all too busy to come so far for such a small job. Thanks. You guys could have said that off the bat when I called, but no, they didn’t admit it until multiple calls.
On to plan B; buy a cement mixer and do it ourselves. OK, that’s fine. But we’re older persons. We realized after doing it that we should have hired our teen aged nephews and their friends to toss around all 110 bags of concrete. Each was 80 pounds. Needless to say, it took all day and we were exhausted and dirty by they end of the day.
But it was done. Now we just needed TuffShed to deliver the pumphouse.
While we waited, I kept working on the parking pad to make things smooth and level.
Finally the team from TuffShed came, and in just a few hours we had a pumphouse. It’s the first structure on our land.
And next week, Idaho Power is coming to hook up electricity. It’s not much, but it will allow us to park on our own property…and have power…anytime we like.
Next up, drilling the well
Sailing in Endless Song 