Weekly Update: 8.24.24
Grace and I stood side by side, surveying the four-gang electric box. It needed to house four light switches on two different circuits. We had avoided it earlier in the week, leaving it for more experienced minds and hands. But by Thursday afternoon, we were confident.
"I think we connect the east and west flood lights with a pigtail," I suggested. "And then we pigtail this hot wire into three hot wires. Does that make sense?"
"That makes sense to me," Grace nodded as she grabbed her linesman pliers. Between the two of us, she makes much nicer pigtails.
"It really is intuitive, having done so much of it," I finished.
"It is," Grace agreed.
We had spent all week on the outlets, and we were almost giddy to be finishing one of the last outlet boxes in the bunkhouse. It had been a rather fascinating process, as we learned the basics and adapted them to various wiring situations. After the first couple days, I felt like I had the hang of it. Then my carpel tunnel flared up again, and I found myself sleeping in wrist braces. It was frustrating, but Grace's calm demeanor and easy skill kept us moving forward, even when I had to take breaks and switch to less wrist-twisting tasks. Bonnie-Jean jumped in and helped as well. We hoped to finish our outlets this week, and for the most part, we did! Over the weekend, we plan to finish a couple outdoor outlets along with our range and dryer outlets. As soon as everything is finished, we can order our panel and schedule our electrician.
School is back in session in our area, which meant our brother Levi was back to work substitute teaching. We missed having him around every day. Still, we are so thankful he got to be here for the long wiring project. As we look ahead to the coming weeks, we will be planning jobs around when we will have our menfolk off work.
On Tuesday, we took a little break from outlet wiring to put together our new wood chipper. We ordered it in July, as our old one broke just as we needed mulch for several projects -- the garden, dog pen, and outdoor gym. We had also cleaned up several areas where we had harvested posts for the garden, so we had a giant brush pile we planned to chip up. After a lot of discussion and research, we ordered a smaller, affordable Yardmax Chipper from Walmart. It was supposed to come the next week -- except it didn't. After weeks of being told it would arrive and it not arriving (including the chipper bouncing between several different delivery companies), the chipper was finally delivered on Tuesday. We were thrilled. Dad and Levi started putting it together, only to discover deep scratches in several places -- obviously from shipping. We considered returning the chipper, but we didn't want to wait another month. Frustrated, Dad called Walmart again. He was polite, but he explained the situation. We hoped Walmart could discount the chipper, giving us the price of a display model. Instead, they surprised us and offered a full refund without us having to return the chipper. After all the runaround we had with the thing, we felt so -- blessed.
We also had a bit of a hassle trying to return the whole house fan we purchased last year. We opened it up to install it on Saturday, and for the first time realized it was used -- the wiring was all mangled, and parts were missing. We called Home Depot and explained the situation, and they graciously agreed to let us return the fan, even though it was purchased nearly a year ago. The fan was out of stock, so we took the opportunity to order a bigger fan -- which we wished we had done in the first place. While it was a bit of an inconvenience, once again -- we feel pretty blessed.
On Friday, we made a trip to Bolivar for groceries. We've had to go to Springfield the last few times we needed supplies, but we always love the opportunity to shop in Bolivar when we can. We lived there for six months 20 years ago, and we all have fond memories of that time of life. All these years later, it is still a small town that is just the right amount of busy. The drive to and from is beautiful, meandering through the Bear Creek area and Fairplay, where my mom's family comes from. After picking up the groceries, all of the ladies spent the afternoon doing some food prep for the next couple weeks -- putting away bags of groceries, organizing five ice chests of produce, and marinating 24 pounds of chicken.
Looking ahead to the next week, on the days the men are all at work, we are planning a deep clean of the jobsite. Grace and Bonnie-Jean got a head start this week, but there is still a lot to do. We want to organize the bunkhouse better for installing insulation, and we want to sort all of our tools and supplies. It is amazing how messy and mixed up everything gets with so many people on the job. As we are looking ahead to the next phase of our build, we want to be prepared. Having a tidier jobsite will make all the difference.
One day this week, I updated our planning board. After insulation, we plan to tackle our bathrooms, laundry closet, and kitchen sink area. This will allow us to install several fixtures we have already purchased, and it will make our day-to-day lives much easier. Having a washing machine again will be a game changer. In the immediate future, my mom and I have several projects to research and shop for -- from bathroom floor options to affordable paint. It is going to be quite the change of pace for us -- and we can hardly wait.