The plumbers finished up last week. That was quite a project and quite a saga. We had bids from 3 different plumbing contractors who all wanted $20,000 – $25,000 for the project, and they all said that they would be done in a week! $20k / week! Maybe I’ll be a plumber in my next career. We didn’t go for that. Pop called the plumber’s union in Ventura and arranged for someone to come out and work by the hour. The union plumber came out, looked at the job, and said he could bring 2 other plumbers and get the job done in 3 weekends, working for an hourly wage. Now that is what we wanted hear. He was scheduled to come out to begin work the following Friday. He never showed. Pop called him late morning and the plumber said that he had hurt his elbow the night before, was on the way to the doctor’s office and would call after the doctor’s appointment. No call back. Pop called him late afternoon, and he said he would be OK to come out on Saturday to begin working. No show. We were done with him. God was looking out for us in this matter. The day after Pop had committed to the original plumber, he found out that the son of his very good friend was a commercial plumber who was between jobs. So when the first plumber fell through, we called Larry the plumber (not to be confused with Larry the cucumber). He drove out from Colorado with another plumber and they were on site less than 48 hrs after the call! Larry and Joey initially thought that the job would take them about 4 days and 1 day for inspection. It turned out to be much bigger than that. They were working for 13 days. They were very conscientious about working inside the house, and they were good with the kids and the dogs. Joey spent 3 days working in the confines of the crawl space. He and I commiserated on how uncomfortable it was to work in there. I even heard stories of Toby and Max talking to him through holes in the floor. I think they liked working here in Carp in their shorts. We had some of the best weather of the year. High 70’s/ low 80’s with very little humidity. The job they were headed back to in Colorado already had snow on the ground.

Larry and Joey — nearly a part of the family

I have taken 3 sets of panorama shots of the front of the house this week. Previously, all the panoramas have been from across the street or on the outside of the hedge, and you couldn’t see thew whole front, just the top half. So, I am trying to get a *whole* shot. I am taking the pictures in the morning to reduce the ‘washed out’ spots where the sunlight lightens one area but not the other. I take a bunch of pictures and then use my screaming fast computer at work to build the panorama. But there has always been something wrong with images. The picture below is not perfect, but is the best I have got, so enjoy.

Whole front

You can click on the image to get the whole big picture.