Swim spa is up and running. I have to play chemist to get all the chemicals right, but that's okay, I can read and I picked up a device to read the color strips since I can't trust my vision on that. I know I'm not color blind but I find great difficulty matching up a color on a chart and using that to alter chemicals. Give me a number.

I can get it to 95° when it's 40° out. I actually have a couple of pond heaters I can toss in to make it truly hot tub heat but I actually prefer about 95. So if it can't maintain that I'll throw the pond heaters in.

I put in double suction cup handles around where the jets are so you can hold on and do an acrobatic massage pulling yourself towards the jets. I love this thing.

I can swim in place on my back by anchoring my vision to a spot on the skylight beam ceiling. But I'm still going to throw some thick rope with knots in it just to hold on.

I am having Keith, my contractor, create two more steps with railings all the way up. It is kind of scary hoisting yourself over that last bit or coming back out when you are wet. I can do it but it scares M and it will kill her father H when he stays with us in January and February. So I'm having that fixed.

The infrared sauna is about 15 steps from the swim spa. It is halfway into the shed in the picture.

It's 40° in the shed that the sauna is contained in. This is a work in progress but I want this sauna up now. There is a hundred amp electric box in the shed but it's not hooked up. That will be sometime in the near future. Doesn't really matter at this point. My critical path has been fulfilled. And I don't pay until the project is over. That's not entirely true. I cover ongoing cost of supplies. At home Depot Price.

I negotiate a flat rate which he creates off the top of his head. He bases it on whatever home Depot prices are for whatever materials are and his time which is always far far less than an electrician. Or any other contractor I've met. I also do occasional accidental psychoanalysis on him. I text a comment on a work habit of his and he thanks me for this incredible breakthrough in his psyche. He used to be a SWAT policeman who was also a medic. He was the guy who would repel in down from the helicopter to shoot people if he had to and then fix them if he could. He went from that to being a carpenter and electrician and general purpose ditch digger and anything else you could possibly imagine. His carpentry skills are amazing. He can do anything up to installing the meter. My electrician, Steven, who actually installed the new 200 amp service looked over Keith's work and he approved it. It. Steve is very busy and while he'd like my work, it's a piddling bit of nothing compared to what everybody else is doing and paying him. He's fine to hand this off to Keith, and Keith is a licensed contractor who knows what the code is. He said great, use this guy.

He stayed in my house with his girlfriend when I went on my Alaskan cruise. I didn't have to worry about anything. I pay him $25 a day and it probably cost him much more than that in gas to go back and forth from his work as compared to his regular place.

So Keith is about 3/4 done, I'd say. The connection from the new meter has been taken to a 200 amp panel halfway down my property behind my house back which feeds off lots of lines.

A couple of these lines go off to a junction outlet box by my fish pond which is 2 x 110 25 amp lines. Of course all these are plastic shielded covered outdoor outlets. The fish pond is essentially a 15x15 ft pit that has 3 ft walls and then another foot or two of dirt berms. On top of that there is a fabric to shield the fish pond liner for any sticks or rocks we might have missed. On top of that is an EPDM fish pond liner that I had to get in on a pallet. The liner is large enough to lift up and around all the berms.

Keith dug this with an excavator and then laid everything out as needed.

On top of that I threw some tree rounds that were cut from trees on my property. I'll make it pretty with dirt and rocks and plants, but for now I just have to get the water and filtration system correct.

I have high power pump and aeration equipment and everything I need to do to build a large three stage filter system through the 55 gallon drums and k1 media. I was just waiting for the electricity show up and it showed up yesterday.

Then there's 50 amp 220 volt that is running the swim spa. Keith wired that up.

Then there is another box that is supposed to come out by the swim spa with a couple of 110-25 amp lines for the pond heaters.

When I say it's supposed to come up, I mean the wires are laid out with the boxes and the electricity is coming out of them but they are not buried yet. At least about half of them. Keith has done some serious ditch digging both with a pickaxe and an excavator. That is part of the project. But I'm happy to get the electricity right now.

My goal is to not be running this thing at any serious temperature when I'm not using it when it's very cold out. Seems like a serious waste of money to me. So I'd like to quickly be able to bring it up to temperature. So I've got a couple of 20 amp pond heaters that each would require its own 25 amp line. Temporary quick usage but critical.

Right now the pond heaters are totally unnecessary and I've got extension cords off these 25 amp lines feeding the sauna. The sauna is a mixture of wavelengths of infrared and visible. It has separate heating elements for just pure heat. It's got incredible back support that you lean into and the lights right behind it. So you can't touch the light and hurt yourself. It also has lights at your legs and lights in front of you. And a big glass wall to be able to see the movie theater screen that is the next stage of that project.

It is incredible after a swim and it reminds me of hitting the steam bath after swimming at the club or hitting the adjoining sauna after spending a morning detoxing in a hot tub with a buddy of mine. Either way, I love the combination.

I turn the sauna on in the 40° room. I get undressed and leave my clothes in the sauna. I typically wear a bathing suit but it doesn't take long for the jet to rip it off. It is dry warmth. I walk 15 steps to the spa and hang my towel. I'm in the 95° water with the steam bath atmosphere. All the windows are shut to start off with but if I want a bit of breeze through it I can open any window on any side.

I play in the jet stream and I massage myself merely by holding on to the grips and pulling myself around and enjoying myself and occasionally swim a bit. I could never swim more than 5 seconds if it's on high power. That's Olympic strength required there. But I'm perfectly happy at low power.

I'm done in the spa so I walk 15 steps back to the sauna and it has timed out from its default 30 minutes. I step into it and turn it on and it's 93°. It takes about 3 minutes to get it around 100. It claims to do 130 but I'm not doing that.

At that point I could throw Bluetooth music from my phone to the speakers. But I'm just sitting there slumped enjoying it for about 20 minutes before I'm done.

At that point I went from dry to a bit sweaty. Quick towel off and put on my perfectly warm and dry clothes.

I love this thing too.

Okay, that's the resort attraction stuff. Let's move on to the more mundane.

We have constructed an additional kitchen downstairs. That means ripping out the walls and floors as necessary and getting the water and electrical and sewage all right. That was all plumber and electrician work. A bit of Keith there, but he was working on my steps at the time and I wasn't throwing additional projects at him, I wanted him to concentrate on the steps.

Right now our monster freezer is in there. When the electricity is finished in the shed, the monster freezer will go to the shed.

The point is to equip it to be a desirable Airbnb location. And then allow them to use the swim spa and the sauna (and media room and anything else I've set up, but they don't touch my wood shop, too dangerous) as long as they sign the correct releases. No one under 18 and I will have a lawyer construct the correct document.

So it has a big sink with a great hose faucet. And a dishwasher and a nice oven and stovetop and microwave and air fryer and pretty much anything we have up here we'd put down there.

And we put a crap but comfy little sofa that can pull out for additional sleep space in the little living space.

And we put it in a really nice king size bed, very comfy, as well as a queen size Murphy bed so we can say it sleeps a lot.

Part of the electric project is putting in RV lines. I will have three RV setups for electricity meaning a 220 line and a 110 line times 3. So they can park their RVs on my long gravel driveway. But I'm not dealing with their sewage.

When people are using downstairs we can't use the washer dryer. We couldn't figure out any place to put a set upstairs so we put them out front of my house. I'm officially a hillbilly. It is difficult to see them from the street because there are a couple of sheds blocking the way. It is just getting cold out so I have 80 ft of heat tape to wrap around everything and we will have them inside a tent that should be delivered in a couple of days.

Build the filters for the pond. Finish a bit of floor in the downstairs kitchen. Bury the wires. Set up the final woodworking equipment. Get the dust system working. Start the garden beds.

There is so much dirt to be moved. Build the steel flatbed enclosures for the gardens. That's going to break my back. Fill them with wood and chips and dirt and then the next level of dirt. That's going to break my back as well.

There's lots of stuff to be done but it's finally getting there. My ugly land will turn into a garden of beauty soon enough.

I have this unreasonable prejudice against above ground pools. Big bathtubs on a lawn. They skeeve me out. This one gets a pass because it has a tiki bar top. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.