We finally broke ground!  Today we met Gerald (our consultant, seen in the photo) and the crew from JR Dominguez Earth Moving on the site.  Here you can see them marking off one of the house corner locations:

And here is the bulldozer clearing some of the plants:

Watering the ground to keep the dust under control:

Here are Laurraine and Gerald discussing the operation:

The bulldozer battling a large mesquite tree:

Shortly after the above photo was taken the tree won!  The dozer blew a hose and had to be repaired:

We left the site while the repair was underway.  Here’s how the area looked at that point:

While waiting for the repair to be done we visited our neighbor Bill and Sharon.  You can just see their house up the hill behind the water truck in the above photo.  Shortly after we got there a Harris’s Hawk landed on their roof:

It stayed there awhile and  then took flight:

It landed on a pole:

It finally joined some family members:

Such is the wildlife we get to see in Oracle.

Before leaving Oracle for the day we checked in with the crew.  They had repaired the dozer and were getting ready to take revenge on that tree.  We decided to leave.  But site preparation will continue on Monday and we’ll be back to watch.

In other news, on 11 September we mailed the required paperwork to the San Carlos Irrigation Project electrical utility to start service.  They have to make their own site survey.  We are waiting for a response from them.

We have also continued door and window shopping as well as looking at floor coverings.

But obviously the good news is that we are now on the way to having our new home.  Thanks to everyone who got us to this point, especially Gerald and our architect, Hank.

More posting next week.