Spring Break

Friends and Family,

For those of you following our adventure (both of you), we are headed to our parcel for my Spring Break (April 9th -- 17th, 2011). We have grand intentions of swooping down and building our temporary shelter and simultaneously installing our electrical service...and starting the driveway. A more modest opinion of our abilities would suggest setting up a tent, and possibly figuring out where to put our electrical pedestal.

The photo above is from the Colorado Yurt Company brochure, and is the inspiration for our temporary shelter. We purchased this tent and will build the platform as our first order of business. Penny thoroughly inspected the tent construction and has given her stamp of approval on what will soon to be her new home.

So here is an early element of our decision making revealed; we are planning on bringing 400 amps of electrical power to the land. Whoa. That is uber-wattage you might say, enough to power a small town. This is true, and maybe even a little embarassing for a family that values energy conservation and has visions of building a passive solar home -- allow us to explain. We met (Scott) with a PG&E engineer, and when prompted "what would you do if this was your land?" he helped us form this idea -- we would install two separate meters and supply a line (wire) to the property capable of giving us 400 amps. This isn't because we want to have an outdoor baseball field, its because two meters can actually give you lower bills. We can divide up the barn, the shop and the future house on different loads, and avoid paying hog rates. The second rationale is to leave room for the possibility of creating a fully functioning woodworking studio should Scott, you know, become a full time artist and woodworker... someday... somehow... Though that may be looking decades into the future, it is cheap and harmless to put in more power than needed now, and complicated, expensive, and annoying to add more power later.

We'll see what we can get done next week. I imagine that setting up house and getting comfortable will take much of our time. Annie has a new job to field and train for as well. Go girl. We received the good news just this week that our water meter has been installed at the street. This will be our only comfort utility at the moment, and that's 500 feet away. No power, no plumbing, no heat. no nothing. But we have a river flowing, wind in the pine above, and sun. We have the Blue Dragon to the East (mountains), the White Tiger to the West (valley), and most auspiciously, the Red Bird to the South (flowing water). A Chinese feng-shui geomancer would have much praise for our building site, nestled 400 ft south of a quiet county road, tucked behind a small duff covered berm, housed beneath a canopy of ponderosa pine, and washed in a steady strong light. Not too big, not too small.