What happened to January?

Aloha!

There is no photo for this entry. We've been jumping around from house to house, living out of our backpacks. You should see the car! We try to have work clothes, clean clothes, food, tools handy in our car. We've been doing this since we moved out of Portland in July. This has all been an adventure but it's time for something more stable. We fly to Thailand on Monday for 3 weeks. After we get back, our house will be ready. It's only 3 blocks from our property. We still need to submit our floor plans to a draftsman and apply for a building permit. With Hawaii being slow, we probably won't start building until May. We have a semi-retired hippy builder friend who is willing to help guide us through. Of course, when we need more body, he'll be there along with other friends. But pretty much, Rowan and I will build our house ourselves. Don't worry, we have health insurance. (~: We'll be sure to post photos of our progress, hopefully by summer we'll have the exterior part completed. School will start this fall and when we have some time from classes and studying, we'll do indoor projects. Our house is 2 bedrooms (including a loft) with 1 1/2 baths. It will be about 1,200 sq feet and be located in the middle of our 20,000 sq foot forested lot. We will find an area that's open so we don't need to cut any trees or cut fia trees, which are non native and nitrogen fixers. We'll clear the land ourselves but will need to hire a small tractor to pull up the stumps. Lava is very close to the surface. There is not much soil up here in Volcano, believe it or not - even with the thick forest. The soil might be a foot deep. That means, we'll need to hire someone to dig into the lava for our septic tank. Oh, there is a photo of our lot - we'll go ahead and post that to give you an idea. I hope you'll consider visiting us sooner or later, it's really beautiful up here! Photo on right: our lot is on the left.