Back To Looking

This week was a busy week with the property. We finally got some of the answers we were looking for as to some of the more detailed construction costs, like pulling the electrical lines to the house site and developing the spring. The news was not good.

The spring is not where we thought it was. Originally we thought it was in the middle of the pasture above the house pad site. That would have made it a simple thing to dig it out a bit, put a box around it and have it drain into a holding tank, which then could have gravity fed to the house.

We found out the spring was at the bottom of the hill at the opposite corner from the house site. That means the spring would have to be developed at the bottom of the hill. One holding tank would be at the spring site with a pump to pump it up to another holding tank at the top of the hill. Then there would be water in case of a power outage as the top tank would be able to gravity feed to the house. We would have to trench and pipe all these lines from the bottom tank to the top tank to the house. More $$$ that we had not expected.

Now for the power issue. It was 900 feet from the power line to the house site. That was going to cost about $10,000. The spring site was about another 900 feet away. Since a pump would be required the most logical thing to do there would be to run a separate line to the spring, which would also entail a separate meter. I'm not sure how far the existing line was from the spring site but it was at least 500 feet. So it turns out that there would not just be one line and meter, but everything power-related was basically going to be double what we were expecting.

Then it turns out to get the road right would take at least $10,000. Though it's partially rocked right now it is inadequate. Add to that the other costs, like the garage (which is required by the bank to get the loan), the septic system, the pad prep, propane, yada yada.

The contractor said his figures were showing the construction costs to be at least $85,000. These were the bare bones figures. He kept subtly trying to tell us the total construction costs were probably not working out to be equitable to the property and house. We could only see the costs going up. And besides that we did not have any extra cash to cover costs involved in case the appraisal came in lower than actual costs. (The bank will not loan anything over the actual appraisal.)

Long story short, we withdrew our offer. ☹

But that just means something better will come along, right?

Hail

Friday was the first nice day we've had in a while. Then Saturday the temperature dropped and it got rainy again. We also had a little surprise. Saturday afternoon we got quite a little hail storm. It hailed for at least 10 minutes.

This is the front porch right after the hail started up.

Here is the same view just a few minutes later!
Of course we had to let the dogs experience the hail. Gus wasn't too thrilled.
Notice the hail bouncing off his back!

Clyde is slowly but surely getting acclimated to the weather here. He doesn't seem too bothered by the hail.

I was trying to get a shot of the hail bouncing off his back too. That's why he's looking at me like "why do you keep sending me out?"

The front yard. It almost looks like sticking snow!

Today the sun is shining brightly, but the temperature is still kind of low. I think warmer weather is supposed to be on the way. In about another week or so?

Sunday

Sunday we had breakfast with friends and then took a drive towards Eugene. I find it surprising that these daffodils seem to be just growing willy-nilly alongside the freeway, like some Johnny Appleseed Daffodil sprinkled the bulbs about.

Sorry about the quality of these photos. I did what I was told is a "no no" in my photography class: I took photos through the window of a moving vehicle.

But take my word for it, these are some sort of daffodils just growing wild on the side of I-5.

After showing me the tiny house where he used to live in Marcola when he was about 18, my husband and I then went to his sister's house and we had a nice visit with her and her son and daughter-in-law. We are sort of parallelling their lives right now in that they are living in a rental after having sold their home. Like us, they just purchased a lot, and where we are having a manufactured home put on our lot, they are building a "real" house.

As we left to go on our way back home we saw a couple of deer in the yard.

As I've told a few people we seem to be "moving at the speed of Oregon". Our contractor was to call the sellers to get permission to get his excavator on the property to check the spring. I think he was going to do that today, a relatively dry day, as he was concerned about making tracks through the hay meadow.

I'll be happy when escrow closes and we can actually start on the construction. And then I'm sure I won't be able to wait until it's all done and we are moved in...

Cat In The Box

Clyde occasionally gets fixated on Ollie for some reason. Earlier today I cleared out a box that had a bunch of older bills and miscellaneous papers and I left the box on the floor. Ollie thought it would be a good place to park her big behind in.

Maybe Clyde can't figure out what she is doing in the box.

She seems to be aware of his presence and is mildly annoyed.
Now she is just pretending he isn't there at all.
Silly creatures!

In other news we had a big storm come through here last week. It knocked out the power in a bunch of areas, including ours. We weren't as lucky as some, and were luckier than others. Our power was out from about 3:30 in the afternoon until 8:15 the next morning.

The bad news for us is that our big tv appears to be fried now. It just won't turn on. We've managed to attach the cable to our little 16" tv and that's what we're watching now. How I miss our big tv. :-(

****************************************************************

We got a cost estimate from the bank for the property and construction loan.

Yikes! If the construction costs are as high as they are estimating (and she did say they are estimating on the high side), then we will NOT be able to move forward.

As it is written now it will take every single bit of cash we have. That wouldn't be so bad except then they want an additional four months worth of "reserves" in the bank. That basically means four months worth of mortgage payments. Which will not be there after the 20% down payment and closing costs.

We met with the transport guy yesterday. We figured it would cost a little bit extra to get the house parts up to the property because of the bit of hill they would have to travel. Fortunately it was not as much as we had anticipated.

Today we met the contractor at the site. Though specific costs were not discussed I felt a little better about everything. I had the impression that the construction cost estimates that the bank had were very much on the high side.

I am praying every day that if this was meant to be then God will provide the means for us to make it happen. I also ask that if it's not to be then we will know and it will just fall apart. So far it seems to be happening.

Though it is hard to let go of control I am leaving it in His hands; like the Carrie Underwood song says, "Jesus, take the wheel!"