Things Are Going Well...

...but we're not out of the woods yet.

Oh where do I begin?  The last post I wrote mentioned the cold snap we got in Maryland where we had below freezing temperatures for 8 days straight.  This actually set a record for the longest streak below freezing in Maryland in over two decades!  Barlow had told us when the super freezing weather started that they were not able to work on the well until it warmed up.

In the middle of the sub-freezing weather was New Year's Eve where we heard late that afternoon from the selling agent that Barlow had hit water in the well, but they had broken the drill bit and needed to wait for a replacement which would show up in a few days.  Steve was jumping for joy at the news of hitting water!  I wasn't because we knew Barlow wasn't planning to work on the well in the weather we were having.  I wasn't excited to hear the news; I was puzzled.

After talking to Barlow after the holidays, they suggested that we really should move settlement.  They explained that they hadn't hit water yet (I was right to be puzzled...) and the weather was really keeping them from making progress.  We put in on Tuesday evening an extension until the 16th.  We picked that day mainly because of the weather and also because that is the last day our loan is able to be disbursed before needing to do a whole additional round of submitting paperwork to the bank.  The sellers didn't sign the extension until Friday night.  For some reason, they were still holding out hope that we'd be able to settle on our original settlement date, which was supposed to be today.  Barlow had not been able to work on the well at all last week, so we were very confused why they waited that long.

We finally got the heat wave we needed (45 degrees) on Monday and they were able to start working again, but not for long since we ended up getting freezing rain all afternoon/evening.  On Tuesday, we still hadn't received an update from Barlow since they suggested to move settlement.  So we decided to stop at the lot and we were both shocked to see that they had started to drill in a second spot.  This means that they didn't hit water in the first spot.  Below are some pictures of that visit.

See the tire tracks?  Pretend they are on the other side of the stake to the right - that will be our driveway.  Oh also, the new drill rig is there.

Drilling a new well.

The 600-foot dry well.

That brings us to today.  Steve emailed Barlow to let them know if we don't hit water today that we likely need to move settlement again.  We explained that we really didn't want to do that since that means more work for us.  Lucky for us, they did hit water and we do officially have a well!!  We found out that the first well they tried is dry even though they went 600 feet deep!  The well that actually has water is 500 feet deep!

Who's got two thumbs and a well and a giant mess?!

Now onto the test that takes 3 - 5 days to get results....  Barlow said they'd let the lab know to rush the test, but they can't guarantee the test results will be back before the 16th, and that more than likely, they'd be back the morning of the 16th.  This is cutting it very close with settlement!  Settlement was scheduled for 11:00 am, but we have already pushed it to 2:30 that day so we can hopefully get the results back in the morning.  We are feeling optimistic that we'll have the test results back by then and that they'll be the results that we want, but just in case, please keep your fingers crossed for us!  I know I ask that a lot.  :-)