Some more foundation work pictures

Here's a collection of pictures from the foundation work. This one shows some of the 39 yards of dirt in the basement when the work started. It also shows the previously-finished north wall which was completed about three years ago. I'm doing the same job on the south side of the house now.
These were from early December, when I finished the majority of the piers and posts. The visible 2x6 studs got Hardie-board sheathing on the outside which is a cement fiber board.

If you look carefully in this picture, you can see a missing sill plate, which was rotten. I replaced it. You can also see the new sill plate I put in already. Both had extensive dry-rot, but thankfully they were the only rotten parts in the entire floor.

The concrete piers in the ground were 24 inches cubed (some deeper than 24"), which is a metric ass-load of concrete, all from premix bags.

I'm glad to be done with the majority of the purely physical labor. I have a newfound appreciation for ancient societies building monumental works like the Great Wall, the pyramids, Stonehenge. Moving the earth is hard work.

My foundation is done! My foundation is half-way done.

In the past couple weeks, I've finished off the major foundation work of the season. That means that the house is now firmly attached to a foundation which includes LOTS of concrete. Bring on the earthquakes!

No cause for celebration though, since this effort only brings a total of one-half of the house up to snuff with a real foundation. The east half of the house is still rather jimmied with wood posts sitting on rotting bricks, rotting concrete and rotting wood sleepers. All that will be much easier than the work done to date since only very minor excavation will be needed. In all, I removed 39 yards of dirt from my basement to accommodate the final foundation. The picture above is me driving the Bobcat MT 52. It's called a "walk-behind skid steer" and is basically a power wheelbarrow. Great for scooping and driving, I used it for about 38 yards. You can move about 10 yards of piled dirt in a couple hours with this machine.

To get the Bobcat in and out of the basement, I had to remove the deck and porch, and dig myself a ramp from the back yard into the basement. Now that the foundation is done, I've got the ramp all back-filled with gravel (again moved with the Bobcat). That MT 52 is so handy that if I had a spare $10k laying around, I'd hunt down a used one. The only problem is that it is reeeeeally heavy, so it ends up tearing up the yard pretty severely. Now I've got a giant mud pit for a yard. The new replacement deck will cover all that up.

Chicks with bricks come. Chicks with sticks come.

All the chickies look healthy and are visibly growing. Their outermost wing feathers are coming in little by little and they're taller.

Today they moved into a larger house, longer to allow room for a roosting rail. I came up with this rail setup for the last flock and it works well. The picture shows the setup. To begin with, I lay the three-hole bricks flat and the stick in the middle holes. As the chicks get bigger, I tip the bricks upright and slot the stick into the middle hole. When they outgrow the container and move into the garage, they're big enough to use scrap lumber. Until then, this is an easy solution.

Six quick chicks come

Yesterday, we went to Foster Feed & Garden to pick up some new day-old chicks. They are the earliest place in town to get chicks - most feed stores start getting them around the first of March. They're also closer than the place I usually go - Linnton Feed & Seed.



I had previously decided to get an assortment from Murray McMurray, but after thinking it over, we decided that we didn't want the hassle. Sure, we could get a bunch of ornamentals, crazy feather-feet, huge combs, long tail feathers - exotic stuff - but we'd get 25 chicks and have to subsequently sell off the others via Craigslist. That just seemed like too much trouble for our little flock.

We ended up getting a few nice breeds - two Rhode Island Reds, two Barred Rocks and two Araucanas. Sarah grew up with chickens on her family farm, some of which were Araucanas, and the other two breeds and good cold-tolerant layers. Should be a nice mix-up of colors and attitudes once they mature.

Lily is working on the names. We think they'll be kinds of candy, since "candy and chickens are good to eat." (She's a carnivorous pragmatist.)

Right now, they're in a 20-gallon rubbermaid-style storage container in the corner of the kitchen with a 250-watt infrared brooding bulb hanging overhead. They're bedding on straw, which is fine so long as I clean it out every other day or so. They're eating a lot and drinking enough. When I bought them, I got to stare into the cage for a while to pick out the excited, strong ones. In a few days, I'll start sprinkling grit on their food, and in a few weeks, I'll move them into the basement. I still need to finish fixing up the coop - put in a bigger, human-sized door, reinforce the poultry netting at the fence edges to foil the coons, and re-hang the door. Maybe I'll be able to eliminate the coons before the chicks move outside.

Now I just need to figure out when they start to like kitchen scraps. So far, they've snubbed pears, banana peels, some polenta cornmeal sprinkles and cucumber peels.

Wednesday Potluck: Lasagna

Back in the 1990s, I worked for The Olive Garden, almost straight out of high school. It was an edumacational experience, and I've since acquired the opinion that everyone should work in food service at some point in their lives.

My job at the OG started in the dish pit, washing away LOTS of leftover salad and breadsticks, and ended up as a backup line cook. Along the way, I spent at least a few months making about 20 lasagnas per day. That was my job: lasagna cook.

So as you can imagine, I have some "issues" with cooking laza. Namely that I have a hard time going slowly, or changing up the recipe, or resisting writing the time at which the dish went into the oven in a fat black marker on top the aluminum foil.

But I persevere - and last night was no exception. The laza was delish, partly because I used a homemade meat sauce that Sarah made a few weeks ago (and froze). It was paired with two greens salads, some sauteed cabbage and a loaf of bread. All yummy.

And afterwards, I got some architectural pointers from my neighbor Jeff about rebuilding the deck in the backyard - Spring plans.

• Cook 10-11 whole-wheat lasa noodles in water until almost done. Don't overcook.
• Have thick, hearty meat sauce on hand. To make from scratch, cook a pound of ground meat in a full jar (~26 oz) of marinara sauce.
• Combine 2 eggs, 15 oz cottage cheese (or ricotta), a half-cup grated parmesan, some salt and pepper, and a half-cup fresh-chopped parsley. Mix until well blended.
• Grate a full little block of mozzarella cheese, like about 8 oz.
• Sautee some veggies to liven up the dish. For last night, I used half an onion, one small chopped carrot, a stick of celery, a zucchini, and a handful of chopped crimini mushrooms, added to some olive oil, in that order so they all cook different times. Don't overcook them because they are going to cook a bit in the laza. You could add some spinach leaves, asparagus, summer squash, finely-chopped greens (collard, kale, chard) or whatever you have on hand. Don't make too much of this stuff though. When it's all cooked down, it should be maybe 3 cups max.
• Spread a cup of plain marinara or watered-down sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 dish. Don't grease it.
• Lay down three laza noodles, some cottage cheese paste, some grated mozz, some sauce, then another 3 laza noodels, the same ingredients, then the sauteed veggies mixture. Top with the last 3 noodles, the last of the sauce, the last of the mozz cheese, and grate some more parmesan on top.
• Cover with foil and cook at 375 for about 45 mins. Let it sit for AT LEAST 10 minutes before cutting. The longer it sits out of the oven, the better it will be.