delays – Star Field Farm

When the lead builder promised me that once construction began, it would move swiftly, and we’d have a weather tight structure in 10 weeks I didn’t believe him.

It’s not that I thought he was lying, it’s just that I couldn’t imagine how two workers alone could actually build a house.

When we realized there was a confluence of disparate events that rendered the main garage unable to fit the car lift it was designed for, I was certain we’d lost our window for the house to be finished by winter.

But, here we are in early August and the builders are raising the roof. Literally.

And mad props to George Abetti and Geobarns for their communication and swift action when we realized there had been what might have turned into a fatal error in executing the design.

One of the key elements of this project was to allow for storage of 6 cars, including a car lift to allow Neil to do his own automobile maintenance. As such, one section of the garage needed to have 12 foot ceilings to accommodate the lift and the posts and to allow him clearance to work beneath the cars.

Well, when the foundation contractors went to pour the concrete, they realized that because of the way the land broke, and they way the clearing had been done, they could actually pour lower walls. They figured the rest of the height could be made up for with the wood. In their calculation, this was an excellent turn of events because it would be cheaper for us.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t effectively communicated this to the build team or the designer and it had serious ramifications.

The beams had been ordered to fit the specs BEFORE the concrete pour and the resultant section of the garage ended up a foot too short for the lift.

Cue panic and distress (Neil) and concern (me).

In a burst of emails between us, George, and the onsite build staff, the Geobarns people apologized, took complete responsibility and promised to fix the problem. And they did it in a way that wouldn’t cause a major delay or require tearing down of what had already been built.

Do you know how unbelievably rare that is in today’s world? I am so impressed with the Geobarns folks. To find a designer and builder who have an aesthetic that jives with yours is hard enough, but to find a team that operates with the highest of ethics, humility, and honesty? That’s priceless.

The slow march of construction time

We’re closing in on the end of June and we have little progress on the build to show for it. Some of the delay has been because of the unusually wet spring we had in New England. It’s hard to move dirt when it turns into mud in the torrential downpours. Part because of communication lags between the excavation phase and the foundation phase. Part because this is a small project compared with the larger commercial projects our contractors also are responsible for, so when the choice is between pouring concrete for a large building or a subdivision versus our garage project, it’s not hard to see why we’re still without a foundation.

But we have footings, and we’ve heard from the builder that the foundation will start to be poured tomorrow. Keeping fingers crossed.

The other way of measuring time is by watching the seasons progress. When be first bought StarField Farm, it was deep winter, full of stillness and silence.

Now, we revel in the sounds of birdsong, wind rustling in the trees, the brook gurgling over rocks, frogs and crickets in the evening.

And everything is green.

Summer green

The peaches on our 3 trees are getting noticeably larger each time we spend a weekend here. They are now about 1 and 1/2 inches in diameter. The last weekend we were here, they were about half that size. That was the day I culled about 25% of the fruit on the trees, lest the weight of the peaches bring the limbs down.

These were the peaches we culled from the trees. :sob:

Last night, just as I was remarking to Neil that I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen fireflies, they started sparking in the low light of dusk. We watched from the back porch as the fireflies were replaced by the distant wink of stars overhead. I think we even saw the ISS zip by.