King of the Hill.

      We are so excited! We have been climbing around this piece of the rock for two years. Each time we pushed ourselves through the underbrush we wondered is this the right place? What will the view really be like? Will this 'top of the ridge' lot support a structure? Can we afford to put a house there? Could tough rock formations get in the way? But putting aside the practicality of location, will this place deliver the dream, the dream we both share?
      We are so excited. The ground has been broken. We can see that our dream will work!

      There have been questions about access to the lot. The driveway would be carved against a 

very steep hill with little room for error. Where it actually would sit was not completely defined. 

The tractor showed up today. Let the questions be answered. Up we go!

      Dig, dig, dig. The operator, Wayne, must be a dare-devil.  Because at many points half of the vehicle was suspended out in the air. He pushed earth up, he pushed earth down, side to side, you name it. Somehow he managed to push himself up the cliff.

        Half way up 'the driveway' Wayne says he has run into a large rock. He says he will just run up over it to get the machine up on top of the driveway. But he says that the metal treads on the tractor don't like rock. Meaning he could slide off. Off to where?

      He made it. Here's the cut driveway finished, for now. It's not as steep as we expected. And the tractor is now in position to start digging the foundation for the house.
      We are so excited. These pictures do 'not the story tell'. There were points when the tractor looked like it would cascade over the edge. Giant boulders went tumbling down the hill. Fortunately there were breaks to stop the rocks.
      But now there is no stopping our construction! Stay tuned, more to come! And quickly!

The sky is falling, the sky is falling. No, only trees.

      The U.S. Congress can't seem to get out of it's own way, but here on St. John we are still moving ahead. Now that all the needed permits have been acquired, the lot is starting to be prepared for ground breaking. The trees are getting out of our way! A crew of West-Indian fellows arrived and began the clearing process. I was there to watch. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. No chain saws, no weed whackers, only men and machetes.
      Just machetes? And there were some pretty big trees! Take a look below.

      So this view is from the swimming pool end of the house looking towards the master bedroom. But what about the view out to the other islands? Well, here it is below. Tortola directly across. Not a great day for picture taking. There is a steady warm haze moving through the Caribbean. This warm air is what's keeping hurricanes from forming. Let there be haze!

      Today, I signed the construction contract. No backing out now! What's next? Ground breaking of course. There will be the customary photo-op. Architect, builder, clients. But Jim isn't here. He's out in Palm Springs taking pictures of sweaters. Sweaters in the desert? Anyway, we will have to wait until next week. In the meantime there will be more site prep. A stilt fence has to go around the property to control erosion. The driveway has to cleared of weeds and trees.
      On the way into town I noticed a bunch of septic tanks, some with our builders' name on them.  Yes we have 'poop' tanks. Our project is flowing nicely!

We be back on de island, finally!

         OK, so you probably think we fell off the earth and disappeared. No such luck! JimBob returned to St. John on September 1st, 2013 ready to resume our adventure of building a dream-home. So what happened while we were up in New York City?

         Nada, nothing, not a ting, mon. Our rental home, Tropical Manor, was a mess. It took us days of cleaning to get settled back in.

         Well, it's not entirely true that nothing happened while we were away. See the photo below. If you remember from last winter, I spent days and days cutting down bushes to open up a look at our new driveway. On the left is the result of my handy-work. On the right is what it looks like now. Hey, what happened to all that trimming? Holy- moly, I don't want to go through cutting bushes in 90 degree weather again. Where's Jim? Oh, he must be knitting again. Whatever.

         I've decided to wait on the gardening. Anyway, it looks like we may be on the verge of pulling the trigger on the building project.  At the right you will see our building permit! Yes, we actually have one now. Which means that we are only waiting to hear from the developer. We need his signature on our plans. He already has given us 'conditional approval'.  We expect to hear from him next week. Final approval?
         Wait, wait, wait! Look closely at the building permit. It has the wrong address. And it has no signature! OK, what's with this? Our architect tells us that he stopped by the permitting office and they will issue a new form. When? Hey, the price is wrong too. I don't care about that. It's way too low. Works for me!

         While we were living 'large' in a New York City apartment, there was some construction done on our rental Tropical Manor. Part of the decks were made of Trex. That's a composite material which, apparently, didn't hold up too well. It started to sag and mildew. So the owners had travertine tile installed instead. Beautiful. See the next photo.

         We have a contractor. We have agreed on a building estimate. We have a contract in front of our lawyer. We have the agreement of the developer. We have a building permit (kind of). We are just about ready to go. When do we break ground?

         Stay tuned. He, he, he! You get to wait for the next blog posting!