My Mother's House

Living Here

2009-02-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here are some new pictures of mom's new digs showing sings of life.

This is mom's RED door! I love red it.

I will post the rest of the pictures tonight when I don't have a monkey hanging by one arm off my back.

Almost Done

2009-01-13T15:09:00.000-08:00

Finishing work takes so much longer while it is happening then you ever think it will.
We are so close to being done.
The floors are done (all but a small patch upstairs that is waiting for another box of lumber).
The bathrooms are mostly done.
The painting is just about done. (just the laundry and garage to go)
The electrical finishing work is almost done.
The appliances are almost all in, (just the fridge and the propane to go for the range).

Here are some pictures of what is new this week.

Here are some of the light fixtures I picked up with mom last week.

Living room.

Mom's bedroom light

Guest bedroom light

The kitchen is nearly there. They a putting the grout in the back splash today. Mom picked out the pattern for the tiles. It looks like something a quilter would do.

Do you recognize this sink?

Joe made this sink for mom and dad when we moved to Missouri about 25 years ago. We have all loved it. Mom and I realized the other day that it was going to be left behind which was really disappointing to mom. So.... I talked to the cabinet maker and Eric, the contractor, and worked out a deal to get it moved over. They installed it yesterday and it looks and works wonderfully. Mom gets to have her favorite sink too.

This is the tile work for the bath tub. It is pretty cool.

Proof that the toilets are in.

The hot water heater.

This wonderful machine means that there is running water in the house now and we can do laundry again. We have been without that ability for a little while.

There will be more pictures of the Laundry room as soon as they have it painted and ready to show.

The PROJECTED DATE!!!! We hope to have mom moved in by the end of next week at the latest.
Kathie will be here to put her seal of approval on the project then so she will be able to give us a report of how it all looks!
I hope we pass mustard.

Catch Up December

2008-12-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

We are almost done. I need to catch you up to speed because apparently someone hasn't blogged for over a month.

Where to start....
Oh yes, last I posted here they had started on my kitchen wall.....

Well the finished taring that out while the drywall crew were at mom's house mudding the place.
Then the mudded my kitchen and in the spirit of progress I said "Sure go ahead and mud on the day before Thanksgiving." I didn't realized what that involved. I was kicked out of my house from 9 am to 6:30 p.m. the day before Thanks Giving. When I got back in, my whole house was covered in a thick layer of sheet rock dust that was near impossible to get out. Enough about that fun.

They also finished the exterior of the house.

What do you think?

Next the painters came in to mom's house and primed the walls and added the first coat of her paint. The walls are a lovely warm white. You can see them in the photos to come.

As soon as the painting was done, Eric and his boys started in on the floors.
Mom chose tile for the kitchen, bathrooms and entryways.
Here is the kitchen tile when they started it.

While they were working on the floors at the first of December, the stone mason came in and worked up mom's wood stove area. Not sure what you call that, the Hearth, Anyway it is lovely. They used the leftover stone from the outside of the house. When she gets her stove put in it is going to be beautiful.

Next came in a lovey big pile of boxes of mom's wood floors. She picked a wonderful reddish honey colored oak flooring that is pre-finished which saves time on installation.

Here is a peek at the finished floors.

They also installed the heat and air system too keep the house at a constant temperature for the wood floor. It is set at 65 deg F all the time but it is very warm and toasty inside with the foam insulation mom had them put in. I am amazed at the difference it makes in her side of the house.

While all the business was going on at mom's I have been busy painting my side one bucket of paint at a time.
While mom's house is a nice quiet white to be a blank canvas for her beautiful artwork. My house only has one painting so I decorated my house with wall color.
My entry is now a warm Marigold to greet you when you come in.

My prodigious pantry is a lovely shade of Eggplant.

My kitchen is green but you will see that later in the post.

Now the tile floors are all in at mom's house and you will see them in the next few photos. The wood floors are mostly done and the stairs are in and just need to be stained to match the house.
The exciting part now is that the cabinets are in and will be finished up this week. The granite counter top at mom's has been ordered. It is black with large brown flecks in it. It is very beautiful and really shows off the color of her cherry stained cabinets but enough talk. Here are the pictures of her kitchen, entry, sewing room, and bathrooms so far.

Kitchen

Her cabinets are clear alder with a light cherry stain to match a china hutch she already has.
Stairs they are a wider than normal.

Hall Storage between bedroom and sewing room.

Laundry room. The cabinets are coming this week.

Sewing table/computer desk. This is mom's main work area.

Bathroom Linen storage and tub installed. They are going to tile around the tub to make it work as a shower for mom too.

Entry with the bench/ storage thing.

These are the cabinets in my kitchen. They are too beautiful for me. They had them in and done while I was gone to work on Friday. I cried when I saw them. Aside from my babies on their birthdays, it is the most beautiful thing I have seen. I am still in awe of them. They are knotty alder with a cherry stain like mom's. They have bead board in the doors. It was a cheaper option so I picket that and am so glad I did. They are too beautiful for this girl.

I love my pear green walls with them.
My stove goes here.

I think it looks kinda Mission in style. When Miyuki cam and saw them she lay her head down on the counter and just loved on them. They are so smooth and silky. They will pale with comparison to mom's when the granite comes in but for me and my house we love my counters. The tops are laminate and just happen to look a lot like stone mom picked. That wasn't intentional but was interesting.

Well there you have it. I have caught you up to speed at mom's house. Sorry I didn't post sooner. Life is so busy here these days. I worked on this post all day with many important interruptions along the way. If I don't get to post before Thursday, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Mud and Stucco

2008-11-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

Lots of little things have been happening this week.

The Sheetrock is pretty much done and the finishers have started mudding at an alarming rate. They had the floor covered, taped and had started the ceiling and mid wall tape before I left with mom this morning at 10:00 a.m. to go visit the Dr and do some fun shopping.

This is mom's living room all mudded. They will adding bull nose trim to all the corners and and egg shell finish to the walls.

I came home from work yesterday morning to a big surprise. I knew they were working on the wall outside my kitchen but I didn't know they were tearing out my kitchen right at that moment.

I came home and my upper cabinets were gone. I spent the rest of the day madly trying to box up the rest of my kitchen so they can take out that wall tomorrow morning. They finished the ceiling insulation today so we won't freeze to death tomorrow when the wall comes tumbling down.
Time to break out the bread machine and the crock pot for dinners. My kitchen is going to be out of commission very soon. YIKES!
Jeddie was very worried about the wall shaking.

He really freaked out when he saw the saw blade come through the wall.

When mom and I got home at about 5:30 tonight we found a real treat!! The stucco man came and start to apply the final coat of stucco. Mom was really not liking the gray under coat. She said it looked just a little too "San Quinton".

Here I caught her checking out the new color. It was still wet.

Here you can see the "San Quinton" gray and the "pancake" stucco side by side. The new color is fabulous but will take a couple of days to get used to.

While in Joplin today we checked out the wood stove store (Joplin Fire Place) They had some very beautiful stoves there. They guys there were really great and asked what she needed one for and what her intent was in using it and quickly directed us to the two stoves that would suit her needs.

The buck stove model 21 is nice and small and easy to clean up and to use. It's drawback is that it only has a 6 hour burn time and heat time.
The Hearthstone stove was gorgeous and I think someone fell in love with it. It is a soap stone stove that will hold soak up the heat and radiate it out much longer. It's burn time is 8 hours and it's heat time is 12. That would keep the home warm through the night. The house does have a heat and air system that is fabulous but you can't been the warming capability of a crackling fire. I love the windows in the doors. I love to see the fire burn.
This will probably require a lot more investigating but I know which one mom likes best. It is a thing of beauty. The stove they had on the floor had shinny black enamel cast iron. The one in the picture has the sea foam enamel. I think mom likes that color better. It is beautiful. I know what I want to save my pennies to get. They had a slightly larger one that I am loving very much. Someday.

Stone

2008-11-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

The stone work and stucco are well on their way now.

Mom opted for faux stone at the corners of the house. They are made of concrete and look like river stone in colors that mom chose.

This is what they look like from underneath.

Some of the stones are specially shaped to go around corners.

Here is some detail at my front door.

They have also been putting up the sheet rock.

This is in mom's store room upstairs.

This is a close-up of one of her cubbies. (she wanted to see what they look like)

They are almost done with the downstairs now too.

Here is an outside shot of the work so far. It is looking quite marvelous.
Now just to pick cabinets, flooring, and paint colors.

Fluff and Stuff

2008-10-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok here are some more pictures.

Since my last post, here are the things that have been going on.

1. Stucco is started.

They had to put the mesh stuff on the walls for the stucco to stick to. It has felt paper underneath to help reduce moisture. You can see the little bit of the stove pipe sticking out of the chimney.

2. The insulation guys came and put fluff and stuff everywhere.

After reviewing all the insulation options available, mom opted for the sprayed foam. It had the best R factor for what we had to choose from. The spray it on the walls and it puffs up to 100 times in size.

Mom had it put in the ceiling upstairs because it is the only efficient insulation for the type trusses we used. She also had it sprayed in all the exterior walls.

This is the room upstairs. It was amazing how silent it was up there. I couldn't even hear the crickets outside. The rest of the house is really quiet too. (if you notice there is a nice stack of sheet rock just waiting to be put up on Monday)

They put batts everywhere they couldn't do the foam. All the walls of the garage have insulation to protect the houses from the heat and cold.

3. I saved the best for last!!

Eric is now our hero because he was actually able to get a dumpster so we can start cleaning up in earnest. What is so special about that? Well since the tornado of May 10th it has been near impossible to get a dumpster here. Lots of the construction crews have been near impossible to get too. Everyone has been backed up this year trying to get roofs on the tornado victims and building new houses to replace those blown away.

New Doors

2008-09-25T07:01:00.001-07:00

Yes I know we are over due for a post here. The work that has been going on isn't all that photo worthy. Just more electrical, heat and air and stuff like that. However, there were a few interesting bits this past week and I will post those pictures now.

Saturday, Diana came over and we cleaned up the work site and sorted all the trash. Sorry, I have too much of Dad in me and had to save what is still useful for kindling, scrap wood, and such. We even saved the old shingles and siding from my house to re-do the chicken coop, very Dad. We burned the boxes that were left.

Eric worked on getting some of the new doors set as we cleaned up the place.
Front Door

Laundry/Mud room door. We recycled the window from the girl's room upstairs for this room.

Back door off mom's kitchen to her patio and porch.

Pocket Door in mom's Pantry.

The stucco man also brought samples of the stucco colors we were interested in and the rocks for mom to choose from.

Theses are the colors we picked for samples.

We had over 300 to choose from.

These are the colors of stone we had to choose from.

So.... What color do you think she picked?...

She picked this Rosy beige color called Pancake. It was narrowed down to this one and the yellow one in the middle.

She picked river stone in all the colors shown above. They are going to be really beautiful the the blacks, browns, reds, yellows, and greys. I can't wait to see what it looks like done.

Electricity

2008-09-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

Things are moving quickly on mom's house but they are little things so the pictures of big changes are not going to be as often.

Here is what they have been up to this week.

Soffit is up on the porch.

They put the floor in the room above the garage.

Heat and air ducts are in and the can lights have been started.

The electrician is working his magic hooking up the house with plenty outlets and lights per the wishes of the queen herself (mom, not me you silly!)

Roof Done!

2008-09-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

I know that it isn't quite done in this picture but it is done now.

I love the color mom chose. Grandma Wood had a green roof too.

We will be putting in a wood stove in Mom's living room. The house will not be only heated by wood, the stove is there for back-up in case of ice storms. No heat and air systems work without power but the wood stove does. :o)

Well Eric has been thinking of a way to have it there without having it detract from the look of the house. Well he came up with a plan. He has made a chimney to cover up the pipe that comes out of the roof. He will cover it with river rock (the stone mom chose) and make it look like a fire place. The outside wall of the house will have river stone too so it look like it goes together. It is going to be fabulous!!

The exterior of the house is going to be stucco with river rock at the corners. The stucco will be done in free style and will look very Old World. I can't wait to see it done. It will be fabulous. Mom is looking at rosy beige colors. They look like the stone colors from Southern Utah. The stucco man will be here sometime soon to bring samples so she can make a choice.

Here are some other things that got done this past week.

This is the inside chimney for the stove.

The upstairs is decked and now has half walls put up to make the stairway safe. Mom and I both have major problems with open stairs. It makes us feel panicky and we can't go up or down without a wall to at least touch.

The bathroom under the stairs was framed. Eric continued the line of the ceiling where the sink will go so it works together and doesn't look weird.

They are working on the soffit on the porch this week and I heard rumors of electricians and heating and air people. It is starting to move together quickly.

I met a man upon the stair.....

2008-08-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

.... I met a man who wasn't there.

It rained all day yesterday so they put in the stairs.
They also got the windows put into mom's place.

They have also recently finished the rough plumbing.

And, delivered mom's tub.

More Roofing

2008-08-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

We got more roofing done today. The finished sheathing the front of my house and worked on the back patio for mom. They should be getting ready to shingle soon. I hope that we don't get rain before then. :o) That wouldn't be good for my house. This is supposed to be water tight already but you never know with my luck. We seem to like to tempt fate here.

Here is the front of the two houses now. I guess I should say House because mom wants it to look like it is just another wing of the same house not two houses mushed together.

Here is the roof line of her patio. It is going to fabulous when it is done. I think some tea parties should happen out there!

Update

2008-08-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

Things are moving again quickly on the house.
Yesterday Eric came in with his crew and the worked on the front of my house where they are pushing the kitchen out and they worked on mom's patio.

Bradley and Nicolas worked on taking of the facade off my roof so they can bring the roof line together.
Nicolas just stood up there and cut it off. I was really impressed by how strong he is and how much he trusted his dad. He went to cut the beam and stopped and looked at his dad and asked if he was going to be safe doing it. Eric said yes and Nicolas said OK and started cutting without a worry. He knew his dad would keep him safe.

He is heading off on a mission here in a few months.

Here it is finished. They pushed my kitchen out about six feet to give me a dinning area in the kitchen. I am more excited than I can say. I can't wait! We will have a space big enough to eat for everyone when they come over. We should be able to do Thanksgiving here. Who's coming. hee hee.

They also poured mom's patio. It has rained so much this week that they had to bring a pumper truck in. They brought the concrete right up over the house. It was very impressive to see.
Mr. JEB is out there checking out the new patio. It is going to be really nice. The porch is fixed so mom can walk around the house and get exercise without worrying about tripping on uneven ground. The patio will also be covered so she won't have to worry about the sun too much.
We found some squatters on the place this month and had to evict them.

A couple of our little goats think that mom's house is the place to be. We had to cover up the doors so they couldn't get in anymore. We also had to post Joe out on the porch to watch them. We couldn't figure out where they were getting out. He watched them and found that they had found a weak spot in one of the fence panels and were pushing it out with their shoulders. We fixed it quick. Now they are sadly in their pen again. I don't think it will take them long to find a new way out. They are very tricky.

More Roofing

2008-07-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

This is looking so exciting now. They really are working very fast. The porch beams take a long time to put in but look so great when done.

Now mom is thinking about house color and roof color. She is considering cream because that is the color of my house and it isn't too colorful for her but is colorful enough for me. (Hey I would go with a pink or bright green house if I could get away with it. I will settle though for bright colored walls inside.) She is also considering what color shingles she wants. She hadn't given them much thought till I told her there were colors then I could see the wheels turning. Her mother put a green roof on their house because she wanted the look of green things. She missed the green trees she had in Berkley. The house was originally supposed to have a blue roof. I liked the green one myself.
I think it would be fun to have a colored roof; a creamy yellow house with white trim and porch railing and a red roof. Wouldn't that look like a storybook, grandmother's house? You would expect to be able to get a cookie from a real cookie jar and sit and have a wonderful chat. Add some hollyhocks, daisies, and climbing roses and the picture is complete.

Roof

2008-07-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

The roof is going up this week. We finally have dry weather here is MO but with it has come really high temps. It is in the high 90's all way with very high humidity. I can take the heat but not the humidity. The workers are here late into the evening today when it is cooler. They did show up at dawn too though.

They really are hard workers. This is what they did yesterday.

Porch

2008-07-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a bit. We have been busy. The workers got the concrete finished this past week. They have been battling rain for weeks. We only had rain two days last week so they were able to come in and finish up.
They poured the top for the safe room and the wrap around porch.

This is the back of the house.

This is looking out the garage door past her front door.

The pouring was a rather eventful day. I had to work that day and was gone through most of the excitement. Apparently the goats got out and kept running through the freshly poured cement and they had to keep smoothing that out and putting the goat up. We have 4 new baby goats and apparently they get out and visit the workers a lot. I didn't realize they were doing this because I didn't see it and they never commented on it till the concrete fun.
When I got home I quickly got the goats locked up and then gathered all the kids together and we were just in time to put their hand prints in the cement in front of our house.

I just had time to get Joe's hands in there before he had to run off to a scout troupe activity. After he left I realized I should have moved them up just a bit because the corner post will have to be right in his left hand print. Oh well.
After the prints we had more print problems. Apparently while I was gone Jeddie had spent the day at the window watching the men work with his nose glued to the window. In honor of his watchfulness they poured the few feet of left over concrete into a square form and drew his face in it to go in the backyard. After the hand prints Jeddie waited for his moment and as soon as my back was turned he took off and ran right through the concrete as did the dog.

This was of course after the crew of concrete workers had left to get a "cold drink". What ever it was they got wasn't enough for what kind of day they had had. They got back in time to smooth it all out again so there are no foot prints of any kind in the porch. There are however several dog and cat prints in the kitchen extension. Thank heaven that will be tiled and won't show permanently.
Needless to say, I am very relieved to have that part done. I am free to let the chickens go again and don't have to watch them as closely anymore.

Garage

2008-07-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today. We are in the middle of our family reunion this week.
The crew was busy this week already. They poured the garage and did a fabulous job. Yesterday they started framing in the garage that will link the two houses. They are putting a shared laundry room in there next to the safe room.

Safe Room Open

2008-06-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Today they took the forms off the safe room and opened it up. It looks a lot bigger now!

Joe wanted to climb in there to show how big it is. He is just as much a drama queen as his sisters are.

Safe Room

2008-06-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today they poured the Safe Room. It is so tall! I can't wait to see what it looks like when the forms come off. We had a little kitten that kept hiding in the forms today. We had to keep fishing him out. I think we are going to have to re-name him Hoffa.

Catch Up

2008-06-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ok. I have been really busy so I have several pictures to post at once.

First they framed the inside walls.

Then they sheathed the outside walls. This really made a difference in how things look. It is looking like a house.

Next they installed the new septic tank, pumped my old one (fun times!), crushed the old one and hooked me up to the new one. I was only without a septic tank for about 20 minutes tops. It was great!.

Today they back filled around the house. Now there is just a small step up to the front door.

They also prepared and poured the footers for mom's garage and safe room.

Walled In

2008-05-31T18:30:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to a lot of banging around. I wondered what on earth Joe was up to then I remembered getting up with him at 4:30 this morning to get him off to a ward temple trip to Oklahoma City. Then I heard the distinctive sound of a nail gun and realized that Eric and his crew were there and it was much later in the morning than I thought.
They worked really hard and fast and got the three remaining outside walls up before it really got raining here. We were very impressed.

I didn't get a picture of them on the job because it started raining and I was busy making yogurt and forgot. When I looked up again they were gone.
Mom was able to drive over after the rain went away and was actually able to climb up and take a look at her new house. She seemed very pleased and excited. The window opening are so large. We love them!
Miss Caroline is smiling down her happy 9 year oldness in her birthday apron. She is quite pleased with her present. :o)

South Wall

2008-05-30T19:47:00.001-07:00

The crew got the South wall up today. I had no idea the windows were that big. They are going to be lovely. That Southern view is also the best on the property. It looks like something out of an English pastoral scene. It is always misty and just beautiful. What a gorgeous scene to wake up to.

The backhoe worked for a long time filling in around the house so if mom isn't too tired tomorrow she might get to peek at the floor herself.

Line Dancing

2008-05-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry the picture isn't much to see right now but it was a very exciting day.

Eric and his boys put down the chalk lines for where the walls will all go. IT was very exciting actually. After they left I went out and hopped up on the floor and ran all over the place walking in and out of all the rooms. It was so fun to see where everything will be.
Eric and Diana came over this week and talked over the house plans with me and mom. We had been making notes since the project started. We made a few changes to Howard's original plan for mom's convenience. We have made it so the whole house can be moved through in a circle like the house she and dad built. She likes that flow. Every room has two ways out. You don't get trapped in a room that way. We also moved the guest bathroom and made her sewing room a bit larger.
Eric said that if all goes well, the first floor will be framed by Saturday. Mom and I are so pleased with how fast and well Eric's teams work. The back hoe guy was here again working on the drain field. That is taking a long time because of all the rain we have had the past two weeks. Today we dodged more rain. That made for good work days. I am so glad it passed us by. Newtonia is still in such bad shape and they are all frantically working to get their roofs back on to save what is left of their homes.
Interestingly, I visited with one of the older ladies in Newtonia yesterday and she said that the tornado ripped off the side of her house where she and her husband were hiding. (they were crouched behind their couch because they had no where to go fast enough. She is in her 70's and he in his 80's. She said that the weirdest thing happened though. The tornado ripped off the side of her house but left her genealogy room almost untouched. There was a lot of mud on the walls that she had carefully cleaned up but the wall of books and records she has spent her whole life collecting were safe.

Floored

2008-05-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

The floor for mom's house is in.

Eric has had all four of his sons helping him on his projects this week. They all are good hard workers.

Caroline is standing in the far corner of mom's new house. She is in what will be the bedroom.
It seems so far over there. I am standing where the garage will be.

Caroline got permission from Eric to climb the dirt hill today. She wanted to let you know just how big they are. The are quilt the climb to the top.

Bugged Out

2008-05-22T19:29:00.001-07:00

Today they were working really hard on the floor joists, delivered a ton of wood so they can put in the floor and start framing ASAP.
Then they had to stop because the Terminex guy showed up to spray the foundation before they get too much farther. There was some termite damage on mom and dad's house that we got repaired a few years ago and we don't want to repeat that here.

Brickin' It

2008-05-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

I need to play catch up.
Monday the delivered the trusses for the house. I was surprised at how quickly they got here. We thought they were backed up but they are fast. There are many orders going in to the Truss place because of the tornado damage.

Tuesday
They delivered the block and laid the blocks for mom's foundation. They were really fast and sun burnt.

This shot shows the Granny Flat in relation to my house.

Toshi came running over last night so thrilled to tell me that someone was building a house for grandma right next to mine. He wanted to know if I had noticed it. hee hee. He is a pretty exciting neighbor.

2008-05-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

It rained yesterday so nothing could be done on the house. Today they brought in several tons of gravel to fill in the bottom of the crawl space for the house and for the lateral lines for the new septic tank.

They put in the septic tank also today. It is HUGE.
The kids are loving the new hills all over the place. Only Hannah has been brave enough to climb them. The rest of the kids don't want to know what I'll do if I catch them on the mud slides. Hannah has no fear.
We heard from the contractor that an extra hundred bucks could be had if before they left they leveled all the hills off to less than 4'6". Someone has some serous little hill issues. hee hee

Pouring Puddings

2008-05-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

Today the crew poured the footings for mom's house. Bryan came in and told me they were doing that and Jeddie popped his head up and said "Mmmmm, I like pudding!" I like it too.

Our neighbor Joe came over to enjoy the excitement of new construction. Our Rooster Boy-O is overseeing from the other side of the photo.
I worried all day about keeping the kids out of there and out of the septic tank hole which is HUGE. I tried hard but I couldn't keep everyone out.

I asked everyone who did it and they and said "he did it!"

If they keep it up we are going to have to discuss dinner options.

Construction Started May 13th

2008-05-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

We started construction on mom's new home today. Eric and his crew came over early with a backhoe and stared moving dirt.
After scraping the top soil off and measuring with the laser we discovered that the ground was 32" lower on one end than the rest of the house. So plan B was put into effect with mom's approval and now her home will have a crawl space instead of pouring a pad like my home. This will still keep all floors on one level so there will be no steps up or down for her.
Here is how things looked by the end of the day.

As you can see there are Two dirt hills. They are each twice the size of Sam Hill. Joe is prepared to go place his flag at the top and stake his claim on the highest point on Brynhyfryd. hee hee