The countdown to March Break has kicked up a few notches
today at school. Holiday
plans and the dance on Saturday night were the top stories today, but since
there was a fair bit of tween and teen drama going along with most of the girl
chat, Rowen and I tried to avoid some of the weird by doing our own thing at
lunch; and staying away from the packs between classes. Since the temperature had dropped back down
below freezing overnight again, and nobody felt like spending much time outdoors,
it wasn’t always easy to entirely escape from the girl chat or drama; but we
did the best we could.
I’m sure that our teachers are just as ready for the week
off as their students are, but that didn’t translate into a break in the
workload today. While we were busy,
Rowen and I had fun too, since a big chunk of that work was on projects that
were either due this week or during the week between March Break and
Easter. I didn’t want to risk adding to
the tween drama today, so instead of escaping to the music room at lunchtime,
we worked on some project homework in our ‘home’ classroom. That really just gave us less work to do
after school, and gave us more time to play with Ethan and Ehlana once we did
have our homework finished for the day.
It didn’t really warm up much today, so we spent our
after-school play time indoors. Ethan
and Ehlana were with us for our music practice; we had a telepathic chat while
we played; watched a little television; and wrapped up our fun time with some
telekinetic video gaming. Rowen and I
were drafted to help Mom in the kitchen after that, so we were kept busy with
that while Ethan and Ehlana supervised and played on their iPads at the kitchen
table. Rowen went over to the computer
store after Dad and Aunt Leanne came home and took over our cook’s helpers
jobs, and after seeing her out; I sat at the table with the twins, and we kept
our parents, aunt, and uncle entertained pretty much through until we’d
finished the post-dinner clean-up and moved into the office for a major family
business and future plans meeting.
The main reasons we were having a big meeting tonight were
that Dad was going to be in the city next week, and we’re now just two weeks
away from our planned groundbreaking for both the lab and the first houses in
the new section of town. That may not
seem like a big deal when you think about that really just meaning that we’ll
be digging big holes and starting with basements, but while I haven’t been
involved in the daily work; there has been a lot going on to get ready for all
of the construction that’s going to be happening around here for the next ten
years and more. Mom and Aunt Leanne have
led and coordinated all of that, and they have everything from the expanded
quarry and concrete capacity to heavy equipment and extra construction workers
lined up and ready to go.
One of the great bonuses for Witch Falls
is that we’ve made sure that it’s our local companies that get as much of the
new business as possible. For Ethan,
Ehlana, and me, that’s going to be especially cool for some families that are –
or will be – very important to us. The
Landry’s are handling all of the big equipment, though they're taking care of
the leasing or sales; not operating the equipment. Carter construction, Byrd Plumbing and
Heating, and Witch Falls Electric and Light are all expanding in a big way this
year to handle our projects; and those are just a few examples – nearly every
business in town and in the Ridge River area will be affected.
This week, Mom and Aunt Leanne have a little trailer park on
the way. It’s going to be on the far
east side of the new section of town so it won’t be in the way of any construction
over the next few years. Right now,
they’re bringing in enough trailers for the crews that will be starting in two
weeks, and then we’ll add more as needed over the next few months. The trailers aren’t fancy mobile homes, but
they’re not portable bunk houses either.
Aunt Leanne custom ordered the trailers, and each double unit has four
bedrooms with private baths, and a common room with a small kitchenette. Aunt Leanne let us know that she’d also
rented several houses and apartments for incoming workers that hadn’t wanted to
leave their families behind while they were here, and she’d be dealing with those
move-ins over the next few weeks too.
Going over the work details for the next couple of weeks
took a while, and we followed that up with a long look at the construction
schedule for the next six months or so.
There have been a lot of people involved in putting those schedules
together, and the details are a bit mind-boggling. If my classmates were looking at all of that
too, I’ll guess that they’d suddenly find Grade Seven math and science a whole
lot less daunting by comparison!
There were some non-construction future plans updates, and
one new addition – we’re going to build a wind-solar power farm, and make a few
other changes around town that should nearly eliminate our occasional problems
with power outages. That idea came from
Ethan and Ehlana, and their main motivation for generating our own electricity
is because they want to make sure that there won’t ever be any problems with
that at the lab. Yes, the place will
have back-up systems, but the rest of us really loved their suggestion anyway,
and after the most recent storm blackout; I’m sure the idea will be an easy
sell to everyone else in town too – and another nice little opportunity for our
family business.
By ten-thirty, we were ready to wrap up the meeting and do
the bedtime story and snack with Ethan and Ehlana. I wasn’t in my room until nearly
eleven-thirty, and still wanted to get all of my usual studies and nightly
computing done; so it’s ended up being a very late night for me. I spent the first hour and a half working in
the archives, and another hour and a quarter in full-immersion language
studies. I was going to keep the email,
news, entertainment, and sports checks to a minimum before getting to this
journal report, but a couple of family business issues came up; and I spent
another half hour dealing with them.
I’m pretty much just going to have enough time for a nap now
before it’ll be time to get going again, so that’s it for tonight, folks!
Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging
out!
