Trying to celebrate small victories

Today I was trying to remember if the saying is "one step forward and two steps back" or two steps forward and one step back". Whatever it is, we're going through some of that right now and I'm going to try to focus on the small victories.

I'll start by mentioning our recent challenges so then I can end the blog post with the positive. Our second septic system is now installed and passed inspection. To pass though, water had to be pumped into the system and be pumped up to the field. After filling the tanks we learned our water tank and pressure tank had run dry. We do know our well pump still works because there's a manual way to fill the tanks from the well. We don't know exactly what is wrong but it has something to do with the controls that tell the pumps when to fill. Someone very knowledgeable is working on it. In the meantime we're learning more than we'd ever want to know about wells, BW-something-or-other systems, phases of electric and how it works, sensors, holding tanks, pressure tanks, chemical feed pumps, etc.

This cute little stone building houses our well.

It looks innocent enough, doesn't it? I had hoped I didn't need to learn about how the stuff inside works, but it appears I don't really have a choice. The inside doesn't look simple and innocent at all.

I have confidence in the guys working on it and we can live without water on site for the time being. We bring water from home if we need it.

It felt like we were making progress in Adam's house, but once ceilings were torn down it exposed some scary stuff and we agreed it needed to be rewired completely. It will be nice to know it's all brand new and safe once it's all done.

Not only was the wiring an issue, it took quite a while to figure out how to disconnect the hot water line from the boiler system (which we're not going to use) and connect those lines to the cold water line so we can use a hot water heater. Learning where all the water lines are under ground is like learning about a little city's water system. There are leaking valves and lines that have been disconnected, etc. I won't bore you with anymore than that. It's complicated.

Here's a victory. We now have 3 working toilets in the women's bath house. Well, they were working before we ran out of water. In another week or 2 I think we'll finish the bath houses. Fingers crossed. The state inspector came out and we aren't too far away from meeting her standards.

The 3rd septic system will be installed soon and on that system will be a dump station for RVs and a few other buildings in that vicinity. One of which is this small house, which we've been scraping off and on for a few months. It will be the first to be painted and I think it's going to look super cute. Neighbors, you'll be able to see it from the road and I hope you like the colors we chose. Only 25 more buildings to choose colors for. I can't imagine how long it will take to scrape these buildings.

I've been working on signs for the campground. It can be confusing back in the woods where the cabins and tent sites are so we've tried to come up with a way to make it easy to find your way around. Each road will be marked with an animal and the sites on that road will all be, say, Woodpecker 1, or butterfly 3, bear, fox, bunny, deer, etc. The animals and numbers will be on a map for campers to follow.

They'll look something like this when they're done.

Here's some progress that's really exciting for us. We now have internet here. As a matter-of-fact, I'm blogging from my studio. After Comcast brought the internet to one building, our friend, Eben, connected it to the fiber optic that was installed by the state and connects all the buildings. We're very lucky to have that. So far, we have 4 buildings connected and we can get signal a little ways back in the campground.

Several people have asked when we'll be open for business and that date remains a mystery to us too. It all depends on what other hurdles we have to jump.

Stay tuned.