That didn't take long; the first change order

When we surveyed the property the general conclusion was that we were building on a pretty flat site. At least the area where the house was sited was pretty flat. Appearances can be deceiving. There is about a 2 foot fall from the east side of the house to the west side. This is not a big problem
but it will require that the foundation walls be 4 feet up from bearing soil instead of the 2 feet that the contract was based on. Higher foundation walls mean more concrete, more labor to build the forms, and more rebar to reinforce the concrete. Hence the first change order to change the spec and pay more money. Not the contractor's fault. His bid was clearly based on 2 foot walls all around. This goes on the list of things I'll double check next time I build a house. Of course I budgeted contingency funds for just such issues but I thought we might get a little further along before I needed to start chipping away at the budget.

Wall forms are already up as you can see in the photos below. The tops of those forms, once filled with concrete and the forms removed, will be the bottom of the sub floor. Inspector is coming tomorrow and assuming all goes well the concrete truck returns and the foundation will be done.

But before we get to the site photos; Mr and Mrs Bufflehead were out tonight. Photos are a little fuzzy as I had the camera on max telephoto and I did not use a tripod. They seemed happy and energetic, buzzing around the pond at a pretty good clip. Mr B even stopped to jump up out of the water for a few seconds and flapped his wings. Not sure if he was trying to communicate something to me (or Gabe) or just showing off for the Mrs.