New Artwork – Murphy's Law Ranch

Well, we promised to show you everything about our journey, good or bad. This week is a little bit of bad. It’s not terrible, but it was irritating. When we got out to the farm on Saturday morning, we discovered some new artwork on one of our basement walls. Initially we were pretty miffed. There has been no vandalism to the property in the 2+ years it sat vacant, but within 4 weeks of us owning it, someone graffitis our basement. We did make a police report…not with the intention of catching the culprit, more as an FYI in case there are additional incidents. Soon, there will be construction equipment and materials on site, and we don’t want any of those to come up missing or damaged. After the initial anger wore off, we did kind of have to laugh about it. It is tree marking paint, so it’s easier to clean that regular spray paint. The area that’s painted is not somewhere visible from the road. And let’s be honest, male genitalia is pretty funny.

This is the Weiner Wall! LMAO It will be cleaned up next weekend, but it has given us a bit of a chuckle (after the anger wore off).

Now on to the weekly progress. Our main focus was to get a path cleared to the well. The path needed to be large enough to get a work truck through and broken down enough a trencher won’t get hung up in the brush. We got it done….and forgot to take an after picture! #fail We do have a before picture though.

Obviously you can’t see the well (don’t worry I marked it for you) in this picture. All the mess in front of it, which was primarily sticker bushes and buttonbush shrubs, is now gone…and the well is clearly visible (I might remember to get a picture next weekend). Since this picture was taken from a distance, it’s hard to tell just how deep the weeds and brush go, but it’s about 50 feet from the grass to the edge of the North field where the well sits.

We also started tackling the old tiles and tack strips left in the basement. It is all stuff that has to come out before construction can begin. The basement also needs to be power-washed, but that will have to wait until we have water access. After several hours of work (and some bloodshed), we didn’t get very far. Apparently, we need a floor scraper. In addition to everything else going on this week, it looks like a trip to Menard’s is in the plans.

This used to be a kitchen/bar area (or so we’re guessing). The tile has to go and the concrete has to be cleaned prior to the start of construction. Fingers are still crossed for a late-November construction start date.

This used to be a bathroom, and will probably be a bathroom for us when we decide to finish the basement. However, we have to start with a completely clean slate for the build.

I know it doesn’t look like we did much, but about half the bathroom tile and about half the kitchen tile have been removed (see the pile on the top left). The dirt will all have to be pressure washed and squeegeed off the slab. Hopefully next week’s after picture will have NO TILE in it!

As you know, a few weeks ago we bought a singlewide trailer to serve as our temporary housing while the main house is being built. On Friday, we got our building permit, which covers the proper install of the trailer and all the site electrical work. Today, we finalized the sale and have a tentative moving date! That is a HUGE relief! It will be torn down and prepared for transport next week with plans to move it the week of 10/5.

There is so much to get done this week. Existing electric and fiber are being marked today or tomorrow. Geothermal and septic are being marked on Friday. Holey Moley or 811 is for public utilities, which in our area is limited to electric, fiber, and phone. Geothermal, well, septic, propane, etc… are private utilities and can only be marked by private companies. For those of you curious, private utility location is going to cost us about $290 for an hour’s worth of work (that is using electromagnetic locating only; GPR is considerably more and would be useless for our needs). We’re also hoping to schedule a meeting with an engineer from the power company to decide how to run power from our existing transformer box to our trailer. The trailer is going where our barn will be built after the house is completed, so the electric line will need to be permanent. We’re also planning to use the pole for construction, so there will be no need for a temporary pole later. The straightest line from the box to the site is right through our geothermal field, which is not good (hence the $290 expenditure above…way better than $15K to replace a destroyed geothermal loop). We’re hoping the power company will foot most, if not all, of the bill for the line extension, since the amount of power we’re going to be using over the next 2.5 years could be pretty substantial. We’ll keep you posted on that whole process, since it was really difficult to find useful information online regarding existing electric line extension.

Well and septic hook-up will come after the trailer is in place. When the water line is run from the well to the trailer, a new water line will also be run from the well to the existing foundation (and capped off until ready to use) to save money. Even though it’s going to cost a little more up front, all the utilities being run for use with the trailer will be permanent. Since they will all be used later for the barn, it seemed ridiculous to pay for temporary service now, then pay to have it removed, only to pay to have it put in permanently later.

As you can see, the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy and result in MAJOR changes at the farm. We’ll keep you posted on everything and may even try to get a video up on our YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/channel/UCdoNNJ3ua-ug_DCL41tCI_Q).

Peace, Love, & Farming

The Murphy’s

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