Thursday. 

The 5 year old decided to cut a lock of his hair out several days ago, leaving a huge gap on the front of his hair.  In an attempt to correct it - they are not only going on vacation tomorrow, they are also having family pictures taken while they're there apparently - I took him to the hair salon to fix it. 

Amazingly, the stylist was able to fix his hair without having to buzz it all off.  Disaster averted.  Of course there was a trip to the property yesterday - well take that back, there were two trips to the property.  

The first one was because I woke up early, grabbed the dog and went for a hike out there.  Just nice to have a quiet walk in nature.  After I got home from that, the 7 year old - who had stayed the night at a friend of the family's - was asking mama over the phone if he could spend another night there. 

I was on the porch as well and offered my hello to the boy while thinking about what I was going to do next.  Mostly, my thoughts on the property and when, exactly, is this contractor going to pick up the ball and get his @$$ over there and get moving with this? I do everything I have to and then some on my end to make sure that I am not the one holding him up.  

Anyway, the 7 year old heard my voice and after the phone call was ended, there was another one after I had left with the 5 year old to fix his hair.  The 7 year old wanted to come home.  He thought I was still out on the road and I guess spending the night somewhere else is more entertaining than being home -with his sick brother.  The 5 year old has had a nasty cough for several days, everyone hopeful he will be over that by the time they leave.  

Long story short, the 7 year old ended up coming home after getting rude with the people he was staying with because he wanted to come home and then, of course, got himself into trouble with mama for being a little jerk and acting like an @$$ to those people.  This is the way of things when you have kids, they are probably in trouble more often than not. 

Regardless, while I was running around town with the 5 year old, the contractor finally texted me back.  Are you available tomorrow? Uh, no, I'm going out of town.  Well, can you meet me at the property now? I'm not one to drop what I'm doing at the beckon whims of another man to fulfil the needs of their fancies, but in this case, I instantly thought: he's ready to move to my property with his personnel and equipment and therefore, he needs to meet out there to discuss what's next.

So, I said yes, give me 30 minutes.  Went home, dropped the 5 year old, picked up the 7 year old, grabbed the dog and left. The 5 year old too sick to go hiking, he didn't like it much but every time he does any physical exertion he starts gagging and coughing like crazy.  Got over there and waited - for a while - for this dude to show up.  

 We discussed his plans - he knows what he's doing with these RV parks, this is why I have stuck with him over other contractors that have a general idea of what to do but not specifics when it comes to building RV pads and such.  We then looked at my layout.  He was all good with that but wanted to change a few things.  Instead of 10 feet space next to the driver's side, why not 5? That way you give them more room on the passenger side for outdoor enjoyment. 

I was all good with that and had actually thought about it before, but I didn't know the specifics of having enough room for utilities over there. He said naw, 5 feet is plenty of room.  Ok. The trees, most of what I had left up, are going to have to come down.  I knew this, I just didn't want it to be true.  Most of them anyway, a few can stay up. The biggest heartbreaker for me is the two pine trees. They are simply in the way, but they are about 30 feet tall.  To me, that's a huge loss. Perhaps to anyone else, it's nothing.  

I got quoted yet another price on building the pads - a bit of sticker shock - and I said okay. He said, well, you don't have to build up these pads, but then he showed me the amount of grade and also the fact that when you build them up, the rainwater won't be running up against the gravel. It will have a place to run off. If you don't do it, you'll be replacing gravel in a few years and that gravel already down will be all over the place.

What I lose in extra things I didn't know needed to be done I gain in a man's experience building parks and not having to pay an engineer to design everything.  He's all on board with my way of doing it - no real plans - he tries to find ways to keep costs down for me.  He's a totally down to earth type of guy and is basically your typical redneck (and that's not an insult by any means).  A person that is a real redneck - which is basically just a plain ole' country guy with a few "things" about them that might be a bit odd to city folks - will wear that label with a badge of honor. Just saying, many people think it's an insult but if you don't live out in the sticks, you really don't know what you're talking about.  I know I didn't before moving out here.

Anyway, it's almost 8:00 am, I suspect they are out there now. The reason he was getting so antsy about wanting to meet up is because he wants to finish phase II and do phase III at the same time.  It makes no sense, he said, to just finish the mountain project and not have the dirt being hauled over, building the pads while the mountain is being dealt with. Building the pads afterwards would only be adding extra man hours and cost to the project.  So I paid him in advance of finishing Phase II to keep this in good faith and motivation running good and he should be out there now. 

He said he would have 3 dump trucks and his earth moving equipment. I shall find out shortly as I'm about to head out to work - well early of my appointment time - and stop by and see what's going on.  I would probably sit out there for several hours watching them if I could.  But, I can't and Oklahoma is calling.  And I can expect a lengthy wait at the plant. For whatever reason, they are having problems getting the paperwork out after getting loaded and drivers are sitting around for hours. What fun.

Offa here and off to the races.

G'day