Well! Believe it or not, we have got the first wall framed and standing! No shots, as it was too late in the day, but we can see it from our camp set-up 500 yards away.

The rain almost had us beat, but two fine lads and some exceptional equipment saved the day...and our backs! Paul and his dad, Bill, came out with a back-hoe and a tractor/mini-dump-truck combo came out on Saturday to fill, fill, fill! Gravel, sand and before we knew it, the moat around our wee castle was all gone!

All but one small corner. Here's the story. The equipment was creating these titanic ruts in the road. There has been so much rain his year in The County that neither Paul nor Bill could believe the ground could be this soft, but it is soft indeed! They had two more trips to go when they decided that they could not risk getting their equipment stuck in the mud. So Paul's back-hoe is still sitting in what will be our driveway. It's kinda stuck back there. Can he get it out before even more rain falls? After last night's rain, I'm tellin' ya, there ain't no way! There are soft ruts in our drive way that are over a foot deep. And then another 3/4 inch of rain fell!