Christmas Wish List

 I call my wife back in Texas, and I ask her, "What do you want to do about Christmas?"

The question is more poignant than ever in 2021, I've been gone for two months.  I have settled into a small trailer to be on site to consult with our contractor as we struggle through supply chain and labor shortages to rebuild the house that burned down five years ago. I expect I will be here well into 2022. It is a necessary, but severely disruptive set of circumstances for me to be isolated out on our 50 acres of woods.

I tell her, "I've got a Christmas gift for you, but it is too big to mail."

"Ooh, what is it?" she asked with piqued curiosity.

I tell her, "It's a surprise. No peeking."

She then asks me, "What do you want for Christmas?"

I am quick with my response, "I want you. And I think you should plan on coming out to Washington to see the Christmas present I have waiting for you under the tree."

We decide, by necessity, 2021 will be a 'different Christmas'. She is busy with her church job through Christmas Eve, then she can come. She decides it is best to fly to Seattle on Christmas Day. I am excited to unwrap our packages on Christmas Day together.

I tell her, "Perfect, I will have this year's gift for you sitting under the tree, waiting for you to come out and see it!"

***

Don't tell her, but when she gets here she will find that I have put a beautiful new house built for her under a giant Douglas Fir Christmas Tree for her Christmas present. I think she'll like it. 

My 2021 Christmas Gift to Sue: A unique snow covered chalet tucked under a giant Christmas Tree

Winter Wonderland waiting for my wife

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas 'round here

 

I am living beneath a large Christmas Tree. 

I've been under the Christmas Tree since October. 

I used to think that Christmas could never come too early. But I now become exasperated when the Christmas decorations come on display in October. In Texas, October can often be 95 F degrees. It doesn't feel like Christmas, it still feels like summer in October. 

I have learned to wait for Christmas, I have learned to enjoy everything it its season. This year I waited under the Christmas Tree and Christmas did come to me.

Living under the Eighty-foot Douglas Fir Christmas Tree outside my tiny travel trailer in Washington, it began to feel a lot like Christmas with the short days, the rain and the cool fog. I was in the mood for a bit of Christmas festive festoons and lights. I could use some shining holiday lights to brighten my spirits under my current lonesome living conditions. A minor extravagance, a festive string of Christmas lights stretched from the utility pole to my humble abode made it start to look a lot like Christmas 'round here!

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas and Yule Y'all!

 

Little House in the Big Woods - Put A Lid On It

 

As if from heaven above, the long-awaited roof trusses descend. The house rebuilding project is resurrected.

 

In case you haven't noticed, everything in the world is out of phase.

Same rule applies to constructing a house in 2021. No matter how one tries, one just can't link the materials, with the labor, with the permits, with the best prices with what I wish, I wish, I wish would happen. 

Me and my home rebuilding project are discombobulate; the hip bone is not connected to the leg bone - oh hear the word of the Lord! The old spiritual sings of resurrection and the Prophet Ezekiel's vision of dry bones rising up and being restored to life. Oh, dem bones goin' rise again, hear the word of the Lord!

From my on-site trailer home, I look across the land and in my vision is a skeleton, a skeleton of a house. Bare bones and a pile of sticks and studs. Because I am in the Pacific Northwest during a record-setting amount of rainfall, and not in Israel, dem bones I see is anything but dry. But I have faith, because dem bones goin' to rise and become a full, flesh and blood house. Have faith and you will see the restoration of the that old house that burned. Yes, dem old house bones will be resurrected.

Oh Lord, how long must I wait? cries the prophet. The bones of the house are framed and rise above the remaining foundation, but the framed house is still bare bones. I wait. At the beginning of December the framing crew moves to another job for lack of anything to do here. Dem dry bones get soaked with the rain that continues to fall on the just and the unjust alike. I have nothing to do but wait. Wait for the promised resurrection.

Part of the problem and the delay is that we are redesigning major elements of this house on the fly. Where once a flat roof was planned, those plans were scrapped because a flat roof is incompatible with the skylight over the kitchen. New plans, new engineering, new design, new truss package and more delays - unfortunately delays are not new to this project.

On December 8, 2021 the skies clear, the clouds part and as if from heaven on high; the long awaited roof trusses are delivered. The crane lifts them up and my roof trusses descent from the sky. I have seen the resurrection.

 

Truck load of progress arrives, December 8th, 2021

 

Construction site

Up they go to get nailed down

 

Framing crew puts a lid on the house.

 

Roof trusses are lowered for the crew to put in place.

 

High-ceiling trusses go on the redesigned roof, no longer a flat roof.

We started in the basement on November 2nd and by mid-December we have reached the roof. It has taken six weeks to top it all off. With the roof decking stretched across the roof trusses like new skin on dem old bones, the old, burnt and dead house has risen again. Time to put a lid on this chapter.

The old bones of the former house have been resurrected. The newly risen house has a new skin on dem bones. Hallelujah!

 

Thanksgiving with the Whole Washington Family

 Strange how perspectives and lives get rearranged with time, isn't it?

A Strange masked gnome stands guard over his Thanksgiving Pumpkin at Sheri's entrance.

My wife grew up in Washington State with her six brothers and sisters. Two of the six remain in the area. In 2000 we arranged to buy the 50 acres of orchard, woodland and stream that Sue's mother was living on. The plan was to someday resettle on the old Cook place and host family and friends at our country manor. Decades slipped away and we remained in Texas. We would visit our land when timing and schedules allowed, we would talk of "when we get back to the Pilchuck," (shorthand for our land that is bisected by the Pilchuck Creek). We would causally speak of "when..."

Strange that our future landing zone in Washington remained an unfulfilled promise to ourselves through the years while I watched all of the Suneson family relocate to Western Washington. Sister Sheri's husband found work with the State of Washington and they relocated from Idaho after starting in California. Mom and Dad, gaining in years and deciding to give up lakeshore living in Western Montana, asked all of the family to help select a senior living facility for them close to Sheri and move them there near Olympia. Mom and Dad moved to Washington in October, 2018. Sister Wendy retired from California teaching and when her husband's job was eliminated in Fresno, California, they found new employment and enjoyment in Anacortes, Washington. In a span of three years, everyone of my family had relocated to Washington. Yet, we who owned acreage for twenty years and had 'plans' to settle on that land in Washington; remained strangers to the Evergreen State. Everyone accidentally ended up in Washington - except us. Strange indeed.

When the Sue's old family home burned, that started a slow chain of events that evolved and eventually dictated that I drive from Texas in October, 2021 to live in a borrowed travel trailer under a grove of cedars and firs as I worked with our contractor to rebuild the house on our land. 

 

Sheri & Tony hosting Thanksgiving for ALL the Washington Family

Wendy & Barth arrive from Anacortes, WA

 

 

Dad, and my Brothers-in-law Tony and Barth gather in Sheri's kitchen

 

Since circumstances had me away from Texas and living in Washington, I accepted Sheri and Tony's invitation for Thanksgiving at her place 103 miles straight south on I-5. The whole Washington Family would be there, including my nephew Brian and his wife Amy with their 6-week old daughter, Ellie Rae. Everyone was in Washington, except my wife.

For the Thanksgiving table I brought a bottle of Washington wine and a jar of the famous homemade sweet pickles that I picked up at Sue's brother Bill's place on my way through Wichita Falls en route to Washington. 

It was a grand feast with all of the family gathered. Little Ellie was a show-stopper cutie as she tried to keep up with the conversation.

 

Nephew Brian and his delightful wife, Amy, bring the charming Ellie Rae to Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Grand Niece Ellie with her 'Santa Uncle'

 

Great Grandpa Al with Brian, Amy & Ellie

Strange how we were once all located close together in California back when, then dispersed to Texas, Idaho, Montana - only to find the family once again gathered close to one another in Washington. A Strange and Thankful day indeed.

Sheri and Tony, announced to everyone that they were expecting to close on a new house after Christmas. We cheered and begged them to show us their soon-to-be new home under construction a few miles away. 

 

Sheri & Tony's new home. They'll move in after Christmas.

Much for which to be thankful!

Little House in the Big Woods - From the Ground Floor Up

 

 We start back in Square One.

Rising up from the basement level, stairs climb to the ground floor.

Inside Square One is a daylight basement, three concrete walls are all that remain standing in Square One after the house was burned by arsonists on Halloween of 2016. 

Building code requires framed walls to cover the concrete walls left standing after the fire. I ask that a bedroom also be roughed-in in the basement. After some difficulty in locating a framing crew for the job, the basement framing gets underway on November 2, 2021. At last! A tangible start.

A significant redesign changes what is needed to span the basement and give support for the ground floor on top of the basement walls. The architect had trusses going across the open expanse with no support. The contractor and the truss company rep agreed; as designed, that large of a span would give me a 1 1/2 inch bounce in my floor as I walked across my living room if there was not additional structural support added to where the architect had none. Solution: Add a large beam across the middle of the basement to support the trusses. Done - for a few more dollars.

Framing the living space on redesigned floor trusses

Everything is a few dollars more. 

More truck loads of lumber arrive and are stacked on site. The framers, after waiting twelve days for the floor trusses to arrive, can now add the decking for the first floor and build my house up from there. The crew is from Mexico and they prefer to work on Thanksgiving and make a few dollars more, rather than celebrate an obscure Yankee holiday tradition. I hand each member of the crew a $20 bill as a holiday bonus on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. 

I leave the next morning for Turkey and all the fixin's after they arrive on Thursday morning at my sister's place in Tumwater to feast and give thanks.

The walls go up! The dream house takes form.

 

The walls go up, defining the rooms of the house that existed only on paper and in my dreams. For years I have walked into these rooms in my mind, now I step up on a real floor, my footsteps are audible as I and walk between tangible wall studs. I'm walking out of a dream into reality - or, is it the the other way around?

Living room bay window view east toward the Back 40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dining room - A room with a view

Looking across the landscape from the front porch

Either way, there is reason to give thanks for dreams becoming reality.