Our friend Eve wanted to see the progress of the house, so Tina and I went over on Friday afternoon and took Eve to lunch, then stopped by the house.

They have just about completed the framing and started working on the trades.

I especially like the way the front entryway came out.  We get a lot of wind, so having the front entry covered is going to be nice.

Still, the back porch is my favorite part of the whole house.

With the plywood on the trusses, we finally got a sense for what the high ceilings are going to look like.  We are both very happy with how those are coming together.

The electrician had just started tacking up boxes and few of the can lights.  When we got there, the HVAC guys were still busy installing the ductwork so I did not take too many pictures of the inside as I did not want to get in their way.

On Wednesday, I got a call from our builder Brad, with some bad news.  I had the well drilled 7 or 8 years ago right after we bought the land to make sure there was even water on the property, since no water meant building a house there was out of the question.  They had originally hit water at 500 feet.  They dug the well an additional 40 feet deep.  In the years since the well was drilled, the water level in our valley has dropped almost 30 feet!  Our well still has water, but if the water levels continue to drop we are going to have a problem.

I queried Brad about whether it made sense to just drill it another 100 or so feet now to avoid problems in the future.  However, Brad said sometimes the water levels come back up.  To further complicate matters, he mentioned that well drillers usually will not come out and set up to drill just 100 feet.  Plus, once the well has been drilled deeper once, it cannot be done again and we will have to drill a completely new well.

Therefore, Brad’s suggestion that we decided to follow is to put in a larger (and more expensive) pump than we originally planned.  That way, if/when we do need to drill down, we will not need to replace the pump too.  We are also going to have 1500 gallon above ground tank that will be filled automatically by the well.  We will draw the water for the house from the tank rather than directly from the well.

Finally unrelated to the house, Tina and I went into Tucson on Saturday to visit my mom.  A block away from my mom’s apartment is the largest nursery I have ever been in.  On the way back home, Tina convinced me to stop at the nursery.

We have been talking since we moved about getting some small citrus trees.  They sell “Midget” versions of most citrus trees that supposedly grow well in large pots and do not get bigger than 6-8 feet tall.  After looking at numerous “Midget” citrus breeds, we settled on trying a Midget Meyer Lemon tree.  Our friend Eve has one and she gets several dozen (full sized) lemons from it per year.  We looked through all of the Midget Meyer Lemon trees and settled on one that looked pretty healthy and had a bunch of blooms on it.

We bought the tree and a cheap pot and some dirt and took it home.  However, when Tina was planting it in the pot we found a tag on it and found out it was not a Midget Meyer Lemon tree.  It had been put in the wrong area of the greenhouse.  It is a full sized Meyer Lemon tree.  These damn things get to be 25 to 30 feet tall and 25 to 30 feet around!  Furthermore, they do not produce several dozen lemons per year; they produce several HUNDRED lemons per year!  I guess I am now in the lemon business too.