Weekly Update: 9.14.24
We have power.
After months of drilling holes, running Romex, and wiring outlets -- we finally have electricity in the bunkhouse. We've been giddy all week, as we adjusted to having more outlets available than we know what to do with. Electricity has felt like the luxury it is.
Early Monday morning, Garrett Brown of Lakeside Renovations, LLC arrived to hook up our panel. He is a general contractor from our church. Hooking up the panel went smoothly until Garrett tried to turn on our power, and then we hit a snag -- we needed another grounding lug for our main power box at the pole. We had enough for the bunkhouse, but not for our little office building, which we had someone hook up last year. Garrett went ahead and got the house going, and our dad ran to a local hardware store to grab a lug for the office. Unfortunately, our dad ended up having quite the adventure, driving to Ash Grove, Willard, and finally Bolivar trying to find the right sized lug.
While our dad was gone, Garrett checked over our outlets, making sure they were all working properly. He knew immediately that there was a problem with one circuit, as it tripped it's breaker. He got to work inspecting outlets, quickly discovering a mis-wired AFCI/GFCI outlet (it was upside down). I was a bit worried when he found a problem so quickly, but that was the only real mistake he found.
While he worked on the rest of the bunkhouse, I started backing out all of the outlets in the trouble circuit. Knowing how hard we struggled to cram all the wires in the outlet boxes, I theorized that we likely had a ground touching a terminal somewhere. The circuit did stay on when the outlets were out, but that didn't tell us where the problem was. Garrett started checking each outlet. After a few tests, he found a bunch that had an open neutral. He traced the issue back to an outlet with several wires going into it. Sure enough, one of the neutral wires had slipped back when we put the cap on the pigtail. As far as he could tell, there were no other issues in that circuit. He put the outlets all back into their boxes, and they worked fine.
It ended up being quite a long day. Our dad finally got home with a grounding lug that would work, just as evening set in. It only took a few minutes to have everything up and running again. After so much effort put into our electrical, it was rather surreal seeing it all working. For a house wired by beginners, we were tickled with the few problems Garrett ran into. He gave us some pointers that would have made the process easier, but as a whole, everything worked. Grace and I were both relieved and elated.
Once the electric was on, we went right to work moving extension cords. For more than a year, we have been running everything off of two duplex outlets on the side of our office. We had several hundred foot extension chords running here and there, all laid out so we could easily switch between powering parts of the bunkhouse, the tent, and the outdoors. Now, we can run anything we want. When I want to plug in a slow cooker, or run a saw, or make a cup of tea, I don't need to figure out what I can unplug first. As I said above -- it is an absolute luxury.
Aside from the electric, we made other progress in the bunkhouse. Jeremiah had already started running CAT-6 ethernet cable around the bunkhouse, halting when we needed a tool to navigate some tricky corners. The tool arrived this week, so Grace and I helped finish up running the wire to where it needs to be. We realized we needed to exchange some of our CAT-6 accessories, and our new tools arrived this week.
Grace and I also worked on insulation, making our way around a couple bedrooms. It's one of the more satisfying jobs we've done, as progress is so visible. It's also incredibly itchy, and the masks give us major 2020 vibes. But it's been fun -- we only wish we'd had a bit more time to work on it.
With our Dad's help, we installed one of our living room windows. Our dad also worked on getting our bunkhouse entrance accessible from the tent deck. He rolled back our tent fly, modifying our frame so that we can get to the front door. He built a walkway between the deck and the door. Finally, he installed a doorknob. Now, we can walk quickly between the tent and the bunkhouse -- another luxury we can't get over. It's already saved us so much time.
The guys also finished venting our plumbing this week. Once again, we were thankful for Dad's and Levi's willingness to climb ladders and drill through the roof.
We ladies spent some time getting organized for the next few weeks. I've been feeling a tad overwhelmed, as we have so much to do, and sometimes it is hard to know what to do first. It was incredibly helpful to spend some time thinking and talking through the next steps, discussing when we need to accomplish them. I also updated our task board. Once again, I've been meditating on the promises of Psalm 127, trusting that the Lord is building our house in His own timing.
Dolly and Rascal can't figure out what the hurry is. They continue to love life on the homestead, whether they are lounging in the tent, the bunkhouse, or out in the grass somewhere.
While we were busy running in so many different directions, we felt like we were dining like queens. I've mentioned before that we make a real effort to eat healthy due to several health concerns. After some research, the ladies in the family decided to give a more Paleo-type diet a try. Since it's more fresh food than we are used to, we spent one morning this week doing our food prep -- marinating chicken for our dinners, grilling chicken to keep cold for lunches, chopping veggies to snack on and making a big salad for our lunches. On weekdays, Bonnie-Jean assembles our breakfast and lunch to free the rest of us up to work on the bunkhouse project. This way of eating is not that different for us, as we usually eat low carb and fairly natural. The big change is cutting out grains and dairy entirely. I have missed cream in my morning coffee, but that's really the only thing. Enjoying all the fruits and veggies we want has felt almost decadent, as we are used to chugging protein shakes half the time. We still make brown rice, baked oats, and sourdough bread for the men and kids. I'm looking forward to seeing how going without grains and dairy impacts our health.
Looking ahead to next week, we have a lot to look forward to. We plan to make time for some yard work and pre-fall cleaning and organization. We need to take a load to storage (mainly of things we inherited from my grandma), and we hope to pick up our cool-weather clothing (last week's chilly nights caught us by surprise). We will celebrate my mom's birthday one day. Later in the week, Erin's sister is flying in for a visit. Between the cleaning and festivity, we penciled in several bunkhouse tasks we hope to finish. It's going to be a very full week, and we can hardly wait to get started.
