Update 6.17.13
June 17, 2013 § 12 Comments
We are fast approaching my one year anniversary of when I thought my tiny house would be done! Hahaha! June 20, 2012 was the target date when I kicked this project off. Things certainly could have gone faster in spots but also slower in others. I feel like things have worked out as they should. I still have work to do but it has slowed down ever so slightly to start to include projects outside of the tiny house.
Tonight James and I went and got plants for our mini garden. The goal was to get the big lump of dirt that was acting as the step into the tiny house out of the way so we could put a puppy barrier against it in preparation for Denny and then build some steps this weekend (I still am not certain if I will have him this weekend or next, the breeder needs to get back to me). It was a success!
We had a very nice visit from our neighbors early on in the night who saw us out gardening and brought us a flat of plants. Extremely nice! Some great tomato plants, peppers, basil and the pretty flowers that I always seem to forget. I am not letting down too many roots in permanent soil until I know how the neighborhood reacts. This years’ garden is in pots still, much like my apartment life. Except the peas, which are going to grow up the side of my house. We got four types of tomatoes, jalapenos, spicy banana peppers, red and white onions, sugar snap peas, oregano, basil, and thyme. We reused some pots that James and I both had laying around, mixed the dirt dug up for the composting toilet with some peat moss and planted!
We got done with enough time to think about getting rid of some of those bushes we had previously cut down. It worked so well last time that we thought we would have a quick fire in the fire-pit. Then we had a visit with a less than friendly neighbor who was really terrible at calling people names and not very happy we were having a fire when it was ’90 degrees out’. Apparently ‘suck head’ is something that some people call other people, among other things… Had he come over and said hey, ‘can you not do that’ it would have been much better received… That’s not what happened though, instead I got to know the neighborhood jerk a little, he made fun of my tiny house and called us things that didn’t make sense, which is both funny and infuriating. I blows my mind that some people think its acceptable to treat other people like that for any reason, let alone something that is perfectly legal and not really any of his business… From the sounds of it we aren’t the only enemies in the neighborhood he has made though. You win some you lose some…
Here are some pictures:
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- Getting ready to plant, mixing the peat with the topsoil.
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- Planting some onions
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- Tomatoes are in, I put them in a mild spot so that they can get rooted a bit before they get full sun
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- And bam, the garden for 2013. Not shown here is the lettuce tower which is completed, I just need to get some lettuce now :).
Update 6.16.13
June 17, 2013 § 2 Comments
I am trying to scrap together pictures as I can, here are some from this weekend as well as a couple from moving day. This weekend the goal was to get through Lacy’s wedding and to get the water hooked back up. It was a successful weekend on both accounds plus some others! I got to get all dressed up and purty for Lacy’s wedding Saturday and Dad was going to come over on dad’s day (I know, he shouldn’t have to work then!) and put in a second hose bib on James’s place so that I could run a potable water hose (be sure to get a potable hose! a standard hose probably shouldn’t be used for drinking/showering, ESPECIALLY as the main water source, there is ucky plastic stuff that could cause bad things). If dad was having to work on dad’s day I figured the least I could do is invite the family over and make some breakfast! We had a pretty good time and as it turns out there was already a hose bib there that worked just fine, James had forgot about it (it was pretty hidden under the deck in his defense). Easiest hose bib ever to install 
. I hooked my hose up to it and it was like 4 feet too short! We had a pretty busy day planned with blowing some glass light covers for the kitchen with my bros, that ended up having to be canceled since the glass dude mis-scheduled things. So that freed James and I up to run some errands to try to figure out a solution to our irrigation problem and get a hose extension.
We went for a trip to the farm supply store looking for irrigation caps, a hose extension, and since we were there some fencing ideas for Denny and Guinny. We had a successful trip an almost all accounts, we couldn’t find the irrigation caps but are thinking that we should just get a little pump and make a pump house to actually irrigate with the water (yeah for gardens! ). Hopefully I will have some garden posts in the future as I learn more there! We even had time to run to the store and pick up some supplies to make my first meal in the tiny house (small spaces are stinky, tuna may have not been the best choice, the whole place smelled like tuna fish all night!). I made some lunch while James went to fence building. We didn’t quite get done before we took off for dinner with James’s family for dads day, which was a great time. We came back though and got some fence up! Crazy unexpected progress for the weekend.
A couple problems I ran into. Somewhere along the move the gas line broke. It was an older hose and I think it just got stiff, I may have rubbed it the wrong way when I secured it in the bathroom and it appears to have cracked so that the gas just leaks out… I will need to replace that before I can use my stove or my hot water heater. There is one MINOR crack in the grout right at the threshold of the door which I think was caused by moving. It’s kind of in an area that you see cracks all the time in ‘normal’ houses so it’s certainly not a big deal. Not bad if that is the only damage caused! I did get my water and electric meter in on Friday as well, those are soon to be hooked up!
Some pictures:
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- Package delivery! I need a potable water hose (don’t drink out of anything not specifically listed as ‘potable’ or ‘drinking water hose’, a water meter and an electric meter, this way I can track my utilities both for my own interest and also so I can pay them to my landlord :)
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- A view right after the house got situated
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- and that’s about the walk-way, maybe 5 foot or so in front for now, the fold down deck I have shown in my models will be pushed back, I do still plan on building it however.
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- And from the front. I will build a set of steps with a landing at the top for this door and have a fence just behind it
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- It’s pretty well hidden behind this row of trees from this direction.
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- These shots are a little blurry because I was tired and it was dark, no tripod, I am pretty impressed with my camera though, I mean it was dark dark.
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- This is the hole dug out where the potty goes…. again, dark dark outside, i couldn’t even see this area with my naked eye and my camera took this.
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- Super man!
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- Friday night we decided to take some clippers to these bushes. They looked like bamboo, not sure what they were, they are gone now though!
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- It was a fun night cutting and burning what we could
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- I found out James and I are both kinda pyros…
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- And the next morning, a big pile of weeds/bushes, gone
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- and a bigger patio area!
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- Then Sunday night, a fence! (more night shots, sorry they are blurry
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- Looking the other way, there is a ‘gate’ there so that I can get back to crank the composting toilet.
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- This is something I NEVER do… Lacy, her mom and I went and got mani/pedis before the wedding… I have already ruined my fingers… it was weird… but fun!
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- and Ms. Lacy getting her make-up done for her big day
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- I even got to get all dolled up! :)
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- Our dad’s day breakfast
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- with Jeff and Jack the wiener dog
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- Jack the wiener dog is the cutest wiener dog ever!
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- and at James’s family dinner, the grand babies with ‘Pa’ :)
Update 6.14.13
June 14, 2013 § 4 Comments
FLOOD! I dropped home to grab James to head to my friends rehearsal dinner only to find my house flooded! A neighbor had messed with the irrigation in the neighborhood and James’s gates were open so it poured into his lot! RIGHT under my tiny house. He actually doesn’t even have all of his gates to close it so I we had to do some emergency landscaping in order to give the water some place to flow other than right under my house! I think we were able to rescue it in time but we missed out on the rehearsal dinner unfortunately (really sorry Lacy and Jed!). I will be coming up with a plan to limit this in the future, once the mud all dries I will check to see that we are still level and safe with how we are blocked up. We wee lucky, if the water flowed into the hole where the toilet goes I think that would have sucked! We were a few inches away from that point. I shudder to think how bad that could have made things and how much more work that would have been. I almost didn’t even run home, SUPER glad I did and that we caught this when we did!
I also got my door curtains up and a few other things, here are some pictures:
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- I came home real fast to grab James and head to my friends rehearsal dinner, this is what I found when I got home!
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- We had out first BBQ at the tiny house on the BBQ dad bought for me last year, it’s my favorite grill I’ve used, really even heat adn a solit spot in the middle so I can do veggies without them falling through! It was a fun and relaxing night that I wasn’t supposed to have, I forgot to do a little work for Tiny Revolutions Online Tiny house course, It was REALLY enjoyable though and I got everything done as I shoudl have for Drew, consider taking the course if you’re interested, it looks like a great deal!
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- This is what we were planning that night at the BBQ with James, We are getting a plan together for his land. That would be a great garden area to the right, my house, his house and we are talking about converting a Conex container to a shop
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- I finally also got the door curtains up, and as you see put the lights back in their spots. This weekend we are going to go make new light covers though, I like he mason jars but the new ones will be much more personal! I’m excited to show you how they turn out!
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- Here is the other door, its not as cool because it doesn’t have the center mullion
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- This is the start of another project too. I went out and picked up some planters from mom and dads so that I can put some of the dirt away, while I was out there dad helped me drill some holes in a piece of PVC pipe, this one happens to be a scrap of his gated irrigation pipe.
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- Just using a 3 1/2 inch hole saw three holes spaced around the circumference in three different rows.
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- I will be using this as a part of my garden and will show you the rest just as soon as I get it done! :)
We Fit!
June 13, 2013 § 6 Comments
I actually intended on having more photos for you today but my whole life is a little discombobulated at the moment. I have personal belongings in four different spots and they aren’t seeming to line up right now. I do have an update in the works on how things have been since moving but no other images to show you right now other than Guinny and I testing out Denny’s new pad , I think he will fit. He will probably become too tall for it pretty quick but hopefully at that point he will be trained enough to behave pretty well and not ‘have’ to go to his bed, though he may still like to, we will see.
As for the move, there are some VERY important things I forgot to even touch on! First, NOTHING broke. No tiles popped. No Sheetrock cracked. It looks just like it did before inside, so signs even of stress. We didn’t move too terribly far but I am pretty confident that the results would have been the same had it been a longer journey.
ALSO, there is a link to the right for the Small Home. Big Life. An e-course put on by Drew over at tiny r[E]volutions, it is an affordable intro for someone interested in getting a little more into the tiny house process, it will go over all aspects of planning, financing, safety etc. when it comes to tiny houses. I have the pleasure of being one of the ‘guest artists’ along with some other great guests! If Tiny houses are an interest for you but you just aren’t sure if you can or should take that leap this course should be able to help you answer that question for sure, I know it is going to be well worth the 85 bucks. That Drew is too hard of a worker for it not to be!
Sorry to be sorta MIA but things are hectic! [but oh so great!] Hope you all are well!
Update 6.09.13 – Moving Day!
June 11, 2013 § 26 Comments
I apologize for being so late to update, it has been a BUSY couple of days! I Moved!
I had a LONG weekend, picked up around my folks’ farm, I made three distinct messes as my house moved around… Packed up my tiny house and got it ready for moving. Then Sunday was the big day. Originally my friend Jed was planning on helping me move Sunday around noon. He was right on time and came over only to find out his truck is TOO big . He has an extended flat bed which made it about a foot to big to be able to fit under my hitch. It was a good effort but it just wouldn’t work. I almost called off the whole thing but then I decided, hey, this is what its like when you don’t own a truck… try some other options. I posted an ad on Craigslist but then was too impatient to even wait. I instantly called a tow truck to see how much they would charge to move me the 21 miles I needed to go. I called the first one and they said they could do it but instead gave me the name of a guy with a dually, just in case. Turns out that was a great call on their part. Called the guy, he did ‘want’ to help on a Sunday but said he would and it would cost between $100-$110 to move it. That was actually cheaper than I thought he would say. I didn’t want to surprise him when he came out so I was sure to tell him it was a ‘home-made RV’ (which is what they technically are generally). He said it would be fine. He came out, hooked everything up, we had to modify the light wire so that it would plug in but other than that it went pretty smooth. We couldn’t get a good ground to the truck so the hazards didn’t work well but all the other lights worked great. I followed close behind and took way too many pictures (I only posted maybe half of them and it’s still a lot for one trip… I was nervous!) as we nervously went down the road.
He said it traveled really well, it was HEAVY. His guesstimate is between 15k-18k pounds. I still think that is way too high knowing all the materials I put into it. We were not able to swing by a scale unfortunately to get a weight 
. Eventually that will happen but in the short-term I am going to add up the materials and get a rough estimate now that it’s pretty much complete. He did say that it is the heaviest thing he’s ever pulled but also that it pulled very straight and well.
Dad and mom followed down to complete the caravan with their tractor so we could get the site ready. I moved downtown and am renting an empty lot from James. The tractor made extremely short work of leveling the place and even digging a hole where the remote composting bin will be located. I am very fortunate to have the family I do, it would have been a whole weekend long project at least otherwise!
We had a little mishap while backing the trailer in place, the ground was so soft that the trailer sunk a good 6-8 inches so there was a point that the tractor was just plowing it back there. Unfortunately after the trailer got a few miles on its new axles the leaf springs and U-bolts got a little better acquainted and loosened up. two of the axle’s leaf springs had a little bump out that holds the U-bolt in place when tightened down, I remember now thinking ‘what’s that for and why doesn’t this axle have it?’ Well now I know. With the sideways pressure the middle axle actually slipped on the leaf spring and was touching the front wheel. Not to self, if replacing axles get a few miles on them then tighten again. At first I freaked a little and thanked someone that it happened at our final destination instead of on the road somewhere but it really wouldn’t have happened anywhere else or there either if we weren’t plowing through the lawn instead of rolling through it. It was a slight snag, we had to jack up that side of the trailer and put it back in place on the leaf spring then we (James) tightened down all the others to be sure. then BAM, dad moved it into place.
On the way over I only noticed a single person who was mouth open looking at whatever contraption that was rolling down the road. James was nice enough to ride with the tow dude, Gary (I think), and he may be able to speak to whether they noticed others. There were just a couple of people who walked by while we were placing it who made a comment about it being ‘neat’. And ‘Oh, it’s a house, cool!’. It actually fits really well in the neighborhood too, it’s hard to actually see unless you’re right next to it.
So that Sunday was followed but a 16 hour work day Monday to catch up for a deadline or I would have updated sooner. This afternoon I go get the new title for my ‘brand new’ 2013 RV. and then I will try to snap some more photos of where the house is at now, below are all the process photos of the move, sorry, I know there are a ton!
Things still left to do:
- Install water line at new location
- Install composting toilet
- Build media center/book shelf
- Build 10 drawers for kitchen/dresser
- Second coat of paint on the mill-work
- Recover couch
- Electrical closet doors
- Hook up radiant floor heat
- Build the fence for Denny
As you can see there are still plenty of project to keep me going before I can call this complete, I will be sticking around a little while longer on this topic at least and may start to post about my other projects I have going on too. Just because you never say it enough though, thank you for sticking with me through this project, the encouragement you give me goes a LONG way!
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- Denny is 6 weeks old! Hes nearly the biggest dude in the litter right now and gained almost 4 pounds last week, he gained a Tobi! hes now 12 pounds and 12 ounces big :)
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- Hes stinkin adorable! I can’t wait to pet him!
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- He got his first bath and lots of kiddo spoilings :)
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- This came in today! BIG thank you to Suzannah Kolbeck for the awesome hoewarming gift that I didn’t even know you could send via Facebook! If you wanna see another cool project you definitely need to check out her 13 year old daughters place here, http://www.tinymaison.blogspot.com/
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- My porch roof :) IDK why this is here…
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- Getting ready and securing the composting toilet on the deck for the move
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- Dad is getting ready in the background
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- I took the door down from the bathroom and laid it on the floor for the move
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- and took the lights down in the kitchen, the was pretty much the only prep work I did for the move
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- the lights drove with me in my car
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- dad took the gas valve off so it traveled better, the tank was just set on the floor in my bathroom and traveled well.
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- You can see that the gas conection was designed not to stick out at all once disconnected
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- This is Jed’s truck, you may remember Jed from other things such as my awesome gas stove, he pioneered that find!
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- You can see here though how long his truck is, it wont fit under the trailer! Bummer! It was a solid effort and I appreciate it! Jed and Lacy are getting married this Saturday, good wishes their way!
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- as compared with this space
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- Dad is getting his ride all ready for the carivan – Panno 1
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- Panno 2
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- Panno 3 plus my car and that is the caravan
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- After Jed couldnt make it work with his truck I posted an ad on Craigslist and then ended up calling a tow truck anyway, they charged $110 to move it, I did end up getting 3 replies in the firs 20 minutes after posting but opted to go with a professional anyway, I probably could have done it cheaper through an individual but it was worth the peace of mind to have a professional doing it. and WAY cheaper than buying a truck or even just installing a hitch on dadss
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- He’s got a nice truck
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- Lining up
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- The front view
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- we had to cut the plug in wire out of the trailer frame to make it able to plug in but then we were on the way
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- Tobi waited patiently in the truck, being sure not to miss out on the adventure
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- View from inside the moving truck
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- And we are off! If I wasn’t so damn tired I would have been scared!
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- As it was it was a good trip
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- I tried to get some pictures of how tall the thing is compared to street lights, its well under them though james said they were worried for the first couple
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- Just another day in traffic
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- For those of youwho know what Scentsy wick-less candles are, they were developed in the little blue house to the left in this picture, now it is a multi billion dollar company, located just down the road, james actually got to draw their new headquarters.
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- You can kinda see the height here, it is 12′-7″ tall total
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- You can definitely see here
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- other side
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- Just to prove, both lights were working, most of my pictures caught one on a blinker or something
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- chugga
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- chaggu
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- Choo Choo! I tried to ge te skyline, the baby skyline in the pictures
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- Way off in the distance you can see Boise’s skyline
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- and here
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- and here
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- I’m not good at taking picture and driving on a windy road
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- Getting through some construction, I am officially ‘downtown’ here
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- and my first underpass
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- made it!
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- So close to the final destination!
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- two more turns!
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- And final turn, at the local market, ah Jerrys :)
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- few more hundred yards
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- The final spot for the tow-man!
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- Dad starts his tractor to leve out the parking spot
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- He made short work of it!
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- Not a bad parking spot!
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- I’m a pretty good supervisor :)
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- he even dug a hole for the composting toilet to sit down into.
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- The unit I was sent was not what I ordered and as such is a few inches taller. I opted to keep it rather than send it back to New York a little over a year ago when I bought it for a couple reasons, first, it will work, it’s actually a ‘better’ unit but still… it is not what I ordered and I am not happy at all with the quality of the Sun-Mar dry toilet that goes along with it. It was shipped to me broken as well and has broken further since I have had it, not even in use. My feeling is that that will probably have to be replaced at some point not too far in the future… I expected more from a $300 part. I just hope that the composting unit performs better than everything else has. Very displeased with their customer service at Sun-Mar as well as their products at this point, given I haven’t actually even used them yet… maybe it gets better???
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- A view the other direction
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- And moving the house into place
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- We took some extra pieces of wood to make ‘ramps’ over the curb
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- Action shot
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- And the other side
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- going… a couple more feet and the ‘snap’ was heard
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- right about here….
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- Here is a better picture for seeing what all I’m talking about, those three wheels should be spaced evenly
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- Dad is getting in there to check it out
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- Jack it up time, take the weight off the wheels so that the tire could move back
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- James did a good portion of this work, I was trying not to fall asleep while standing up (2.5 hours of sleep the night before)
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- And we’re back in business!
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- It pretty much sits all the way behind that tree there from this direction
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- and is also fairly well hidden this way too
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- This was some morning complications that may have added to the squishy ground, there was an irrigation flooding issues the morning of the move
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- It all got covered up when it was graded
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- Finally wrapped up and went to get teh extra car and everythign trying to make it in time to take some photos but there was no such luck, it as pretty dark by the time we got back, I will get some good ones soon.
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- James took some night shots after we got it all set up
