Gratz Industries HQ: Update

There's been a lot happening here at Gratz Industries HQ - we just haven't had a chance to blog about it all. So here's a bit of catching up. . .

We thought we'd be in the new house for the holidays - and then I called the gas company. I thought it would just be a matter of them coming out, plunking down a gas tank next to the house, connecting it to the furnace, and filling it up. But noooooooo. It has to be at least 10 feet from any structure with a buried line to the house, then it has to be inspected, and THEN they come out and fill it up. That bit of info dashed our hopes of being in for the holidays and led to fun new work. Load as much sarcasm as possible into the word fun.

On Saturday Alan and friend Michael Kline dug a couple of trenches - a trench for the power line to Michael's new studio and a trench for our gas line.

The trencher is a pretty scary-looking piece of equipment--

but Alan handled it like a pro--

while Michael removed some of the million chunks of quartz that the monster turned up. Alan told me later that Michael's dirt had NO ROCKS in it. How does that happen? I definitely see raised garden beds in our future.

Look at that beautiful trench! We'll definitely rent this thing again in the spring when we're building our garden. We have lots of critters around so we'll have to bury the lower edge of our fence.

On Sunday we woke up to a cold house and found out we had run out of fuel oil. Oops. We tried to time things so we'd have just enough to keep us warm until we moved into the new house. We missed by a couple of weeks. So Sunday was cut and split firewood day.

Alan did the cutting and splitting. I mostly stood around taking pictures and tossing an occasional log into the wheelbarrow.

Yesterday was a BIG DAY. Carpet in Jo's room!

Yes - it looks like we definitely need to get something to clean the spots off the lens. But they only show up when we photograph things in the new house. What's up with that?

Jo opted for a checkerboard pattern of Flor tiles and we kept her hustling to deliver tiles as Alan and I set them in place.

Things slowed down a bit when we got to the fussy edge work.


Jo kept us entertained by showing us some of the yoga poses she's been doing in school. No pictures suitable for public viewing. I made a mental note that Jo should always wear pants on yoga days.

It was raining and dark so we didn't get to the baseboards, but I think carpeting a bedroom in a couple of hours before dinner is a job well done.

We are so close. . .