A day later than any of us would have liked…especially MOM. No, not Grandmom, MOM. She was somewhere around 24 hours in labor and then had to have minor surgery afterward. Poor MOM! But everyone’s happy, everyone’s healthy, all is good. Baby Rain weighed in at 6.5. She was born the evening of the 24th. Can’t wait to meet her but that will be a family reunion doings the way my summer is planned.
Most of my day yesterday was spent in Pahrump – and the lovely drive out and back. Diesel is $4.59 a gallon here right now. It jumps up every other second or so. How wonderful. I won’t be driving too many places that I don’t just HAVE to be there. Guess it’s time to crank out the old broom, knock the cobwebs off of it and make sure I have the cover for it because we’ve had rain snarled into our wind. The wind has literally out done itself as far as I can see. And yesterday brought torrents of rain. The sky waited until I was out at Pahrump, and had been in and out of the house several times with the inspector, before it opened up to dump on everything. Then it rained off and on the rest of the afternoon and during my trip back to town, and late into the night once I arrived at home.
I found out some very useful info while visiting with Pete Alfred, Sunrise Inspections, as we walked around and discussed life in general, the house, wiring, well, roof, and everything else that popped up out of curiosity, mainly mine.
Parump is only five miles from the CA border, the county line is the border and Pete says it used to be a bit different but apparently some drunken sailors surveyors changed it.
Pahrump is bigger than Las Vegas – city size obviously not population – and sets in the bed of an ocean, meaning it is all silt. Las Vegas sets on a bed of sand primarily and that’s what caused the sink holes in some of the construction over the years.
Apparently the silt is much worse for sink holes and I did notice numerous crack like holes in the property – the same type that I’ve seen up hiking Calico, etc. The holes just appear to be small spots that water ran into and disappeared into the ground. Pete says that’s exactly what it does, the silt moves underneath the surface and there are sometimes huge sinkholes that cause foundations to crack, etc. The manufactured home is the best choice for Pahrump – according to Pete – because the water won’t stay trapped underneath a foundation like it will in a stick built house.
Also on the property are a lot of soft cedars. They are very comely and appealing to both me and Vickie. They are in bloom right now and some are around 20′ high, and are exactly as their name depicts, they have long sweeping branches that look quite soft and are very esthetically appealing. Bad news. They guzzle up to 400 gallons of water a day – draining the land water that is used in wells…like our well. UGH! Is that possible? 400 gallons a day. Pete also said they are talking about a moratorium on those trees one day. DAMN!!! They are so kewl.
The mountains that look like they’re a mile away from the property are also in CA…Shadow Mountain. I’ve heard there are great 4X roads there and hiking trails.
When it started to rain, it was unreal how the silt grew into the soles of our shoes as we trudged out to look at the tank on the well. And Pete said that no matter what you drove, when it rained, not to drive on the silt in the back of the property, that it would just cake up your wheels so badly that it would pack into the wheel wells and you wouldn’t move. After walking in it and feeling it grow on my jogging treads, I’m sure he’s right. We have plans for some walking paths and for bringing in crushed rock for a drive thru in the back. Possibly building a garage/workshop back there at some point.
The inspection is over, most of the stuff that needed checked out was checked out by certified people – they were called and came right out – and now we wait. The best part of life – hurry up and wait! But if you need an inspector to check out a house purchase, call Pete. You’ll love him and he’s the most reasonably priced around.