Year 6, Day 25 “Living the Dream”. Monday, 5/25/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Happy Memorial Day!

Day 2 foundation block laying. With the rain yesterday and more coming tomorrow. Steve decided to work through our little barbecue. He ate his meal quickly between building corners.

I on the other hand spent time with Justin, Bobi, Koral, and Spencer. Picked up Koral in the morning from her Dorm.

We had a little breakfast out before bringing her here to our house. Justin, Bobi, and Spencer came by and we had a great day. There was no rain but it was very humid and 100 degrees on our deck.

Two full block corners were erected. Three of the eleven block corners are now built up to where scaffolding needs to be used to do the last four courses.

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Year 6, Day 24 “Living the Dream”. Sunday, 5/24/2026, Clifty Hill 3. It is a rainy sunday funday. The Hummingbirds are fully back. You can spend hours watching them. Our hummingbirds are Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris). They are commonly seen in Kentucky from mid-spring through early fall. The males have a red throat and the females have a white throat. Both males and females have a brilliant bright metallic green back and a black forked tail. They are beautiful. They are amazing to watch as they zip around at speeds up to 25 mph and hover. They even fly backwards Their life span is about nine years. It is amazing how when the birds want food they actually come and stare at us through the glass door. These birds are back from wherever they spent the winter (Central America, Mexico, or Florida). Their greatest enemy is the free roaming domestic cat and feral cats. One last fact. A group of hummingbirds is called a charm.

Today was a Lowes morning while it rained more. We picked up two RELIABILT 14500 Series 35-1/2-in x 35-1/2-in windows for the end of the house in the basement wall. They are for the side of the house where the two bedrooms and bathroom are located

Then there was a break in the rain storms where we could mow our lawn.

Around 2pm the storms really hit and there was a down pour. The roads are flooding.

You ever wonder why it can be so dry for months and now flooding in a area. Well in Kentucky there has been a persistent high-pressure system locking rain out of the state for the last three months. The storms have been pushed either north or south of Kentucky. Therefore we have been in a severe drought. Now the rains come and due to the drought the soil has become hydrophobic or water-repellent. Our dry dirt is like concrete and the rain is just quickly rolling off. A slow rain would be better right now. We curretnly have a stalled weather front continuosly dropping rain. You just can’t win. Either too little or too much.

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Year 6, Day 23 “Living the Dream”. Saturday, 5/23/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Day 1 Laying the block for the foundation.The past two days we have gotten 5 inches of rain.

We ended up canceling the open house. We didn’t want people walking through the Wellington with wet/dirty feet. The water has drained from the footing. Tried to work in the morning, but it was way to rainy. It looks like there is a lot of rain still coming our way in the next week. We went out and bought tarps, canopies, and rain gear so we can maybe get some work done. The hummingbirds are so happy with the weather. We now have five at the feeder. In fact all the frogs, birds, butterflies, and spiders are out now. They were hiding and keeping real quiet with the heat and dry weather.

It cleared up somewhat after lunch. At least the rain mostly stopped.

At 2pm the first basement corner was started. Two bags of cement were mixed up. A bag at a time in the cement mixer. The cement mixer is running off a battery.

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Year 6, Day 22 “Living the Dream”. Friday, 5/22/2026, Clifty Hill 3. It rained alot since yesterday. We have gotten more than three inches so far and it is still rainy. As you can imagine no block work is being done. The birds seem to be loving this rain. They are flocking to the feeder. We even have three hummingbirds now.

We headed to the store and ended up sitting in the parking lot for awhile. Trying to wait out the down pour. We have little patience so we ended up pretty wet.

In the afternoon it stopped raining or haha slowed down enough, where there was a little time to dig a drainage trench. We have to let the water run off the footings before work can resume.

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Year 6, Day 21 “Living the Dream”. Thursday, 5/21/2026, Clifty Hill 3. 7am in the morning Lowe’s calls and says the block order will be arriving in 11 minutes. Oh no. It is raining and it is a soaking cold rain.

Lowe’s truck and a subcontracted tractor trailer arrive. Two moffets work to unload the block and type S mortar mix. A moffet is a specialized, three wheeled truck-mounted forklift that attaches to the rear of a delivery truck or trailer. They are so cool. Steve’s brother John uses one with his Kuiken Brothers Delivery truck. The tractor trailer parked on the road and the Lowes delivery truck pulled up by the foundation site. One moffet pulled into the muddy road into the foundation and the other moffet just kept bringing the pallets up to the site from the main road. The tractor trailer was unable to come up the driveway. There was no way he could turn around to get back out.

The 90 bags of mortar may not be usable. Three of the bottom bags were broken open and we are hoping the rest of the bags did not get wet. I did report it to Lowe’s customer service and there is no problem returning any of the 90 bags. We immediately covered the pallet with a tarp as soon as the pallet was unloaded.

The mud in the area is disgusting. Take a look at my sneakers. It got to the point that it was hard to lift my feet. There was so much mud on my shoes.

It took two hours to unload the trucks and place the block where we wanted it. In the afternoon we attended Spencer’s kindergarten graduation. How sweet it is. The Adair County School system had seven kindergarten classes graduating. That is a lot of children. The area is certainly growing.

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Year 6, Day 20 “Living the Dream”. Wednesday, 5/20/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Foundation Day 2. First things first, Always the gym. Love their little jokes!!

That bucking bronco John Deere is working today assisting the John Deere Mini Excavator.

By the end of the day the stone is placed in the main foundation and the master bedroom suite. Stone is roughly leveled. We are ready for the block to be delivered tomorrow. We have a nice mud free place set up for the block delivery and to work in.

Foundation Day 2 video tour.

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Year 6, Day 19 “Living the Dream”. Tuesday, 5/19/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Foundation Day 1. Setting the Corners. Happy Birthday Joshua. Love you.

Corners were marked and nails put in the corners by 9:30am. Yes I did help today!!!

The house is all squared up and ready for the corner blocks to be set. The rest of the day was spent raking the dirt inside the foundation and picking up piles of rocks.

Then the machine was used to start moving the piles of stone inside the foundation and leveling. It is so very hot here. Our balcony thermometer reads 99 at 3:30 pm.

Foundation Day 1 video tour.

A nice afternoon to take a break from the sun and get rid of our cardboard.

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Year 6, Day 18 “Living the Dream”. Monday, 5/18/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home Excavation Day 12, ,Footings Day 4. Justin and Bobi spent last night here. First things first. Happy Happy Birthday to Jenna. Here’s a concrete pour for you. We love you.

We are up and out by 6:30am. The first load of concrete is here at 7:02am. First truck with 10 yards did most of the main home area.

At 7:30am the second truck was sitting at the end of the driveway waiting it’s trun.

Second truck with ten yards did the master bedroom suite area and most of the garage. Just a small section was left. The first concrete out of the second truck was so hard it created a blockage at the top of the chute. When wetted up the blockage released. It all came out as a big mess in the first pier hole. A lot of manual shoveling had to be done to move the extra to another hole. We are thinking this happened because the truck sat waiting for awhile in the hot sun before it started the pour.

Third truck was ordered with three yards and left with concrete after finishing the garage footing.

Three trucks with three different drivers and 23 yards of concrete later and the footings are done. We are all cleaned up and in the house by 11am. No problems at all. What made it so easy was the set up that was done. The prep work Steve did made it easy for the trucks to pull in and around the homesite.

Here are nine short videos of the pour. It is a very interesting process. Felt it might be better than one long video.

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Year 6, Day 17 “Living the Dream”. Sunday, 5/17/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Got the boots so we are ready for the concrete footing pour tomorrow morning. Justin and Bobi took a stroll through the excavation site and found some fossilized brachiopod shells, and Calamites fossils. Kentucky is world-renowned for its fossil-rich sedimentary rock. Fossilized brachiopods are the most common fossils found in Kentucky. How cool is that. They are the official state fossil.

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Year 6, Day 16 “Living the Dream”. Saturday, 5/16/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation Day 11. Footings Day 3. Justin assisted today. The pier holes are dug, all rebar is in place, forms are built for stepdowns, and piles of stone and dirt moved around for Monday’s concrete delivery trucks. Without Justin assisting, Steve would have to work all day tomorrow. Now he can have Sunday as a funday. Thank you Justin!!

Day 11 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 15 “Living the Dream”. Friday, 5/15/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation Day 10. Footings Day 2. Cut rebar and pounded in ground in trenches.

Open house on the Wellington tomorrow from 11am – 1pm.

Day 10 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 14 “Living the Dream”. Thursday, 5/14/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation day 9, Footer day 1. Our footers will be twelve inches deep and 24 inches wide. House footings are the lowest part of a foundation. They are extremely important and support the home’s entire weight. Before the machine starts digging lines. Lots of measuring is done and the ground marked where the edge of the footer will be. This is to ensure the footings are dug straight, square, and to the proper size of the home. The mini excavator does most of the digging. But after that this point there is a lot of manual clean up work in the footers. Then rebar is put in every four to five feet. This is done to mark the concrete level when pouring.

Currently my brain is very consumed with excavation, concrete, cement, and stone. Well ok there is a lot of trip planning, exercising, and too many other things to mention. Do you know our brain has over 6,000 thoughts a day. Lets get this story back on track. Today thinking about cement versus concrete. People just use those terms like they are interchangeable. They are not. Cement is the binding powder used within concrete. Concrete is the most widely used man-made product in the world according to the World Cement Association. It has been around thousands of years. Look at the Colosseum. Concrete also has a huge environmental impact. The manufacturing process emits carbon dioxide(CO2). That is just a little thought from the 6,000 thoughts in this brain today.

Day 9 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 13 “Living the Dream”. Wednesday, 5/13/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation day 8. It is a cool breezy day heading to exercise. Grumpy when I start but oh how that physical activity releases those endorphins to improve your mood. Have you noticed that regular consistant movement and stretching besides improving your mood and giving you more energy. It also keeps you pain free which allows you to sleep better. A few days of without going to the gym and you feel the difference. So most days I am at the gym at 9am.

Steve heads right to the worksite. It is interesting to look at the housing and feeding labor work being done side by side right in the back yard. Foundation area is leveled off at level needed for the new home and the farmers wheat is gone.

Concrete has been ordered and will arrive 7am Monday morning. We have to call back Friday to let SRM Concrete know exactly how much we need. Monday’s concrete pour is for the footings. We anticpate we will need over ten yards. A full truck is ten yards and costs $2,037.15 ($184.00 plus tax per yard). Forms have to be built before the concrete arrives. Justin will be coming to assist on Monday. Funny the plant manager asked me what slump number we needed. Wow – never heard of the term slump before. Anyway slump is the measurement of a mix’s consistency or flowability. Learned something new today. We want the truck to arrive with a stiffer mixture for the steps and then it can be wetted up on site to pour the rest of the footings. The cement plant manager told me most people use number 4 slump for footers. The higher the slump, the wetter the mix. Four-inch (4”) slump is very common with normal weight concrete and is a good average slump for pumping.

Day 8 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 12 “Living the Dream”. Tuesday, 5/12/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation day 7. Stone delivered this morning.

Excavation done enabling the concrete truck access to pull into the foundation.

Farmer behind us has been working on creating round wheat bales. Feed-grade wheat is a palatable, digestible source of nutrients that can be used in beef cattle diets.

Day 7 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 11 “Living the Dream”. Monday, 5/11/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Home excavation day 6. Tomorrow the entrance into the basement needs to be made wider. The cement truck needs to be able to pull in.

This is going to be the corner for the storm shelter area.

Day 6 home excavation video tour.

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Year 6, Day 10 “Living the Dream”. Sunday, 5/10/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Happy Mother’s day to all mothers. But especially to Jenna, Bobi, and Reina. You guys deserve the best Mother’s Day. Love you.

Our Mother’s Day consisted of a Lowes trip. Traffic in Somerset was really light, but Lowes parking lot was full. Steve says why would Lowes be so busy for Mother’s Day. The gardening section of the store was packed. Mother’s day is a big day for flower planting.

The rest of the store was empty. We priced block and picked up some 2×4’s. Steve says every builder should have a few 2×4’s laying around.

Then we found where everyone besides the Lowes gardening crowd were in town. Getting coffee!!! Moms must really really like coffee. The cars were lined up out to the highway at Seven Brew.

Arriving home we realize those weird Kentucky birds are back. As soon as we start building they line up on the electrical wires and watch the progress. They must have a really boring life to find our building progress that exciting.

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Year 6, Day 9 “Living the Dream”. Saturday, 5/09/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Day 5 house excavation and Open house for the Wellington from 11am – 1pm. Happy Mother’s day weekend everyone. Feeling loved today. First thing in the morning a delivery of a basket of beautiful flowers, candy, and a balloon arrived. The flower basket contained my most favorite flower the purple Iris. Thank you Jenna, Jamie, Julianna, Jacob, and Joshua. Big hugs and squeezes to you. Love you guys.

Okay starting to get a little nervous about the Hantavirus outbreak. We have an upcoming trip planned to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will be staying four nights there and actually planned a trip on the Delta El Tigre. Then a 14 night cruise to the Antarctica. One of our stops is Ushuaia, Argentina. At that port we are taking a catamaran to Sea Lion Island. Oh well let’s see how this pans out Met up with Justin and Bobi for a Mother’s Day lunch of some authentic Peruvian food at the Tasty Peru. Busy little family owed Somerset restaurant that opened in March, 2024. This restaurant is located in a storefront. Once inside you don’t realize you are in a storefront. It is nice with low lighting and tables spaced making it conducive for intimate conversations. Music was a little different. There was no theme involved. The music just kind of skipped all over. FYI – another restaurant with NO coffee. The food was different with a bold, intense flavor. I think it is due to the heavy use of aji peppers. Thank you Justin and Bobi for a unique experience and a wonderful Mother’s day lunch.

Even my Christmas Cactus is happy for Mother’s Day weekend, it is starting to bloom.

While I played Happy Mother’s Day, Steve continued with the excavation.

Check out the video of the excavation rings below.

Then made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Hey Steve had to eat also. Lol.

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Year 6, Day 8 “Living the Dream”. Friday, 5/08/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Day 4 house excavation.

After lunch ride back to the house!

Leveling the Floor base

Ordered #57 gravel for under the basement cement floor. This stone is a clean dust free crushed stone, typically 1/2 to 1 inch in size. Often referred to as 3/4″ stone. Clean gravel is placed under a basement floor to provide proper drainage, prevent moisture buildup, and create a stable, level base that reduces concrete cracking and settlement. Another big reason for clean gravel under a basement floor is to allow for maximum air flow in case radon mitigation is needed. The gaps in the gravel allow air to travel easily to the suction pipe.

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Year 6, Day 7 “Living the Dream”. Thursday, 5/07/2026, Clifty Hill 3. Day 3 house excavation.

Today’s gas price. A little bit lower than it has been, but look at that diesel. We use a lot of that everyday to run the excavator.

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Year 6, Day 6 “Living the Dream”. Wednesday, 5/06/2026, Clifty Hill 3. I read this saying this morning and it is so true of me. “Just because I give advice, doesn’t mean I’m smarter than you. It means I’ve done more stupid stuff than you.” Today was a rainy day off. We decided if you want rain, forget the rain dance. Just have Steve start digging a foundation. No rain for months and now 2.5 inches in one day.

The landscaping is really going to take off when that sun comes out.

Today was good for planning and catching up. Planning the build and more vacations/cruises.

There might have been some rainy day napping also. Definitely a weird kind of day for us.

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Year 6, Day 4 “Living the Dream”. Monday, 5/04/2026, Clifty Hill 3. May the 4th be with you.

Here we go, time for another show! Home excavation is starting. Prior to today, the homesite had been prepared (surveyed, driveway installed, water run to homesite, and septic installed). Lines painted and footings are now being dug.

Back from a little Kentucky Derby Lunch and a Lowes pick up. Things are progressing quickly. Wonder what the Lowes employees thought of the glasses . No one said a word – HAHA

Fun fact for my New Jersey family and friends. Somerset, Kentucky, was settled in 1798 and named by early pioneers in honor of their former home, Somerset County, NJ

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Year 6, Day 3 “Living the Dream”. Sunday, 5/03/2026, The Wellington. What a gorgeous early morning. Best time of the day is 5am.

Mowed the grass in preparation for excavation work tomorrow. Much nicer to work in a mowed area. At least there won’t be so many ticks and snakes around.

Then out for a late lunch celebrating the completion of the Wellington.

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