Small Steps and Giant Leaps

This weekend Steve (now recovered from his back injury) came out and finished spreading the base layer of packing sand on the road, while I cut and cleaned up trees on the house site. I intended to get most, if not all, of the gravel needed to finish the road delivered on Friday, but it was just too wet to bring in the dump trucks. I had been worried there wasn't enough packing sand to finish the road, but I am very happy with how it turned out.

We picked up a mostly final plan from our architect on Friday, then spent that night and a lot of Saturday making final revisions and notes. Amanda picked up final builders plans with our revisions today and hand delivered them to a couple of contractors. We still lack getting one set out, though hopefully I can catch up with that guy tomorrow.

I also met with the power company again to mark the path for our underground line. Now all that remains before they will start running that is for me to write them a very large check. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately for us not to have even broken ground yet.  At least we are moving in the right direction.

Rumble in the Jungle

Down Goes Poplar! Down Goes Poplar! Okay, I mixed a couple different fights, but they were both memorable as was this day. This was an "uh oh" moment in the downing of the big and dying tulip poplar that sat where the garage will go, and it effectively showed how dangerous cutting a hollow tree can be. Fortunately I was once again saved by the tractor having a front end loader and didn't have to cut it down from this position.

This is the after, and what it still looked like when I left. I hope to get it all cleaned up this weekend. I have trees down everywhere. I also took down the ladder stand on the oak in the background. Hopefully that tree won't have to go for the house.

Hurry Up and Wait

We got what I hope to be the last load of packing sand for the main road delivered last week during a brief dry spell. I worked on spreading that last night. I still have some additional spreading and packing to do before it is ready for gravel. It is so wet right now that the overflow from the pond is coming up to the road. We also had a site meeting with the architects yesterday. It was postponed last week due to rain. Still trying to make sure the house and garage will fit in the space we have. We are supposed to have final plans next week, but I don't have a good feeling about it.

 Though it is supposed to be the coldest month, the daffodils on the hill below the house site are in full bloom.

Dump Trucks and Telephone Poles

The rain held off for most of this long weekend and I was able to get a good bit done. We met with the architect on Friday and got another round of plan revisions. One big project was taking down the partially built deer stand. I hoped to be able to leave it and turn it into a nice tree house for the kids, but it sat where the garage will be. The telephone poles were set in 3 feet of concrete, so that made it more difficult. One good thing about wet ground, and a tractor with a front-end-loader, is that I was able to do it all by myself.



I also got two more loads of packing sand and two loads of crusher run rock for the road base. My sand from last weekend was still there, so I got one load of rock on top of that and the other between that and the asphalt drive. Monday started off badly when the dump truck got stuck in the pasture on his first trip in. I was just relieved I was able to pull him out with the tractor, but I couldn't get him out until he dumped the load of sand, and that made for a lot more work getting it where it needed to be. Much rather that than have to pay the tow truck though. The kids and Amanda were there for most of the morning, including that scene, so I at least had a lot of fan support. Evan was pumped to tell all his friends at daycare that his dad pulled a dump truck out the mud with the John Deere. Of course Amanda didn't have her phone/camera, so we again get no exciting pictures this entry. Exhausted is an understatement after today...

Still There...

We went out this afternoon after the rain stopped to see how the road held up. So far so good. I'm keeping fingers crossed that it won't wash out before I can get some rocks on it. The kids didn't fair as well as the road. They found the mud and despite rubber boots and raincoats, we had to hose them off and strip them down to their underwear before we could load them up in their car seats. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of that.