Many Around One

I'm in the thick of a design for my rose window. Turns out all kinds of geometric magic happens when a circle is divided into 12 angles. Perfect squares pop up everywhere. And equilateral triangles. This confirms for me the specialness of the 12-around-one orders we see in Scripture: 12 tribes of Israel around one Pillar of Fire; 12 disciples around one Master; 12 eternally open gates around the New Jerusalem. The God who orders his people so also governs the division of two-dimensional space.

There's still a lot of exploring to do to nail down a final concept. These are some of the sketches I've done over the past few weeks. (Sometimes yellow sticky notes are the closest medium when a vision strikes.)

And while I exhilarate myself with sacred geometry there's an array of stuff happening in the background to prepare for the next phase of work on site:

My sewer/water tap guy STILL finds the groundwater too high to bore, so he's researching alternatives.

The house envelope has been staked by a surveyor, precisely as my foundation contractor wanted it staked. Glad I asked, because I would never have guessed he wanted it that way, but it makes sense. I met with him on site last week to look at the stakes, and the first thing he said when he saw my lot is that a concrete truck will not be able to move around the trees to pour the foundation. I was hearing death knells, and asked what that means. He said, "We're just gonna have to pump it." Pump it? "Yeah - back the concrete truck onto the driveway, pour the concrete into a pump, and pump through a hose to the footings. I'll order pea-gravel concrete so it will go through the hose." And that's no problem? "Nope. I have a pump." Okay, so we'll pump it. Thanks God for filling in for my ignorance again.

As we were leaving he looked at the group of trees in the middle of the clearing and asked, "Is that staying?" Yep, that's my courtyard. Then he pulled a knife on me. (In jest... I think, mostly.)

Tomorrow he's going to put up batter boards and string to locate all the foundation and footing edges. I can't wait to see the ghost of this house hovering over the ground.

This morning I finally met with the owner of the adjacent lot, because she has to sign off on the better of two options I have for getting power to my site. The nearest power pole is on the far corner of her lot, and I can put another pole at the corner of my lot and run lines from hers to mine and to the next pole down - requiring all trees within 15 feet of the lines to be cut out of both of our lots. Or, we can dig a trench between my corner and her corner, bury the lines, and cut down trees within five feet of the lines. Of course the latter path is the way I want to go - no new pole, two trees to remove from my site (instead of about 20), five trees from her site (instead of about 15). Seems clear to me. But she was nervous about the digging. And she wanted to be paid for the trees we remove from her lot. Hm. I gave her the number for my power company contact and she said she'll call him and let me know what she decides.

Port-a-John will be delivered Friday. Big day.