Hearthwood Dome

Our Mazda is idling in front of me, its headlights shining over our house site. I've propped up a sheet of Celetexô (rigid insulation with aluminum foil on one side-very light stuff) with a hoe, at just such an angle to shed a diffused glow into the footing hole. This allows me to see the crumbles of dirt and to scrape and shovel them into the wheel barrow or simply out of the way. From time to time I look east to see when the sun will rise, and take a sip of coffee from my travel mug.

This isn't a dream; it's the scene at Hearthwood this morning as we prepare for our footing inspection today. After we had a long weekend run at the footers, Jean rented a much smaller, much more maneuverable machine with an 8" bucket to dig the "non-bearing" (no major weight loads) footers and to finish up the exterior wall footers. She dug and dug and finally finished the trenches last night (she's 7 1/2 months pregnant-is this a super lady or what?). Bob even took a turn at it:)

Right now she's returning the rental in my parents' diesel truck with their flat bed trailer, down in Woodbridge when they open at 6.

My mother, Kathy, Dad, and Bob (and Krissy this past weekend) all helped to put in the grade stakes, lay rebar, clean the trenches, and generally get ready for today. They have our undying gratitude. But I know they're only sticking to it because they'll get to hold our son in a few weeks:)

So anyway, in final preparation, we came out this morning. We've never woken up that early except to catch a plane. And at least there was a good vacation waiting on the other end!

And guess what? We passed. The inspector ("a nice guy," Jean says) passed us and we can pour our footers tomorrow. It WAS all worth it. Stay tuned for more news tomorrow evening:)