Country Girl Comes Home: 2014 - Winter, or "How do we get an address?"

January 2014 we celebrated ... this time with cake...

We enjoyed seeing critter tracks in the snow....

And added some of our own....

Bit of orange and yellow indicates there will be a house here...

As Winter began to yield to Spring, our eagerness for further progress was evident. After meeting with the Town Code Enforcement Officer, the steps to take were clear. Attached to the building permit was an outline.

The land we purchased was always part of a larger parcel. The previous owner used it for hunting. With no house there was no need for an address. We however plan to build our home here, so we need an address. It was somewhat odd for me to think about living in a place that no one had ever built a house on before.

The 911 Address System is where to go for an address. That made sense to me. The pressure to commit to a build site was on. We thought and thought and thought some more and made sure we wanted in the house in the place we picked. Not too close to the neighbor or boundary line. Town Code helped with that. Then the question was, "How long do we really want our driveway to be.... especially in the winter!"

After a few more assurances, we committed to the spot. I was told to mark the middle of the front of the house with a milk jug on a stick. Seriously. That is what I was told.

I thought, "No problem!" Then I realized, the ground is frozen. So I went to Home Depot for inspiration. I found a tamper, used to tamp down sand and dirt for paths and driveways made of brick or flat stones. I thought well, with it's heavy metal base, it will stay up and I can put the milk jug on top. There was one tamper 1/2 the price of the rest so that is the one I went with. I had my stick.

The milk jug is actually a water jug, but I didn't think anyone would mind. I wanted to weigh it down a bit and thought I could use the freezing temps to my advantage. Two plastic water jugs with some of the water poured out to make room for when it froze so as not to break the plastic, were used as weight. Once frozen, it was not going anywhere.

The only think I had to tie it all together was the orange, plastic, boundary marking ribbon. And there you have it, a milk jug on a stick....

I thought it was hard to see the white jug against the snow so I put the safety orange hat on the jug. (I know, I over think these things.)

Oh look... that has to be a brisk buggy ride!

Once Winter was in a terminal condition, our address situation was all sorted out! Yay! Now things started to seem more and more real... and less like a dream. With no mailbox yet, we got another stick. By now the ground was willing to cooperate a bit more. We attached a sign to the stick.