It’s been nearly 5 months since I posted on the blog and well over due. Carol and I have been bouncing back and forth between Houston and Florence, Alabama. After we closed on the land we started construction on the shop/barn and it is nearly finished. It’s bigger than the shop in Houston. It lacks a little trim. and a cement pad in the front and garage doors. Hopefully all of this should be done within a week to ten days.
We have been in Florence this time for about a week and a half. We both drove up and each of us pulled trailers on the trip up. I pulled the 20 foot flatbed and Carol pulled the horse trailer. Most everything on both trailers came from the shop. I was going to bring the tractor up this trip but decided that if I did there was nothing left to load the heavy machinery on the trailer with so it stayed behind and it will probably come up next trip. I need the tractor to continue clearing the pastures for the donkeys down by the creek. And in reference to the donkeys, we had an addition to the herd during out last trip to Florence. One of our Jennies dropped us a surprise package, a little jack. He’s as friendly as can be. His mother’s name is Boo. We bought Boo this spring but had no idea she was carring a baby although she was looking a little broad when we left Houston last time. We haven’t decided on a name yet but since the donkey is the symbol of the democratic Party and since he’s black, just arrived on the scene abd relatively clueless it has been suggesyed by my good friend John Moss that we name him Obama. Another suggestion was that since we don’t know who his daddy is and his mother’s name is Boo we could call hin Boo-Who?
Mr Big Ears
And back to Florence….When we bought the land we were planning on developing about half of it and selling the lots to the guys that are building our house. I spent a week and a half at the courthouse tryhing to discover all of the hoops we were going to have to jump through to do that. The plan was to put in the roads and then the City of Florence would put in the utilities. It appeared that the whole process was going to be a rather lengthy one and that it might take as long as a year or a year and a half before utilities were available and we didn’t want to wait that long. We ended up buying a lot in the subdivision adjacent to our property. The utilities we already in and it was ready to build on . We are in the process of building the same house that we are ultimately going to build down on the Creek. We plan to finish the house move into it and live thre while we are sorting out how best to develop the land. Then once the roads are in we can start construction on the final house down on the creek. This way we will be able to live in the house and make whatever changes we want when we build the final version.
Excavation of the basement
Settiing the forms for the basment walls
Pouring the walls for the basement
This is the basement after they had just finished pouring the slab. The walls of the basement are poured cement. It costs a little more that traditional masonary block construction but is a betterprocess, stronger with virtually no change of leaks. This is where we left things when we left Florence three weeks ago.We arrived here a week ago and the framing on the first floor is just about complete. They started putting the roof rafters up yesterday.
Stick framing
From down the street
Carol’s mother Vera is hee with us this time and the girls have been out seeing the sights of Florence while I have been working out at the barn. We are trying to get Vera accomodations as a local independent/assisted living facility here in Florence called Merril Gardens. She is on th e waiting list and as soon as a vacancy comes up we wil move Vera up here. Once that happens we will probably spend most of our time here in Florence living on the boat and getting all our thing up here. There are probably about 5 or 6 trailer loads of things to be brought up here….and then we have to contend with transporting donkeys up here. At the rate they are multiplying I think we are going to need a much bigger trailer to get them all up here if we do it in one trip. Not sure when that will be as we still have to get he fences completed. We have about 3/4 of a mile of fence posts already up but need to put the board up to keep the critters contained.
We will probably head back to Houston next week. Likely that I will do a quick turn-around load up the tractor and whatever else I can get on the trailer and come on back up while Carol stays in Houston with her mother. We don’t know when the house will be finished. It’s possible that we could be in by Christmas but more likely weill be January or February. Either way it’s not a big deal. When were here in florence we stay on the boat which is like being on vacation anyway.
We have some friends that will hopefully join us in the fall and will take a few weeks off and take Annie up the Tennessee River to Chatanooga or maybe even further up to Knoxville. Rhat will be in October of Noverber when the trees start changing colors. Looking forward to getting Annie moving again.
I am ading a few photos taken from the aft deck of Annie on the Fourth of July. It was pretty spectacular and didn’t even have to leave the slip!
Fireworks at McFarland Park right next to Florence Harbor Marina
And this my friends is what we have to look at every morning as we drink our coffee overlooking the Tennessee River
Ron and Carol Beberniss aboard Annie
Florence Alabama…Paradise on the Tennessee River
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