Weekend Work 2.24

On Friday, the septic (re)design was completed and submitted to the Health Dept.  The soils out there are amazing and after a day of hard rain, no mud!  We don't anticipate any issues with converting the original pressure system (design 3 years old) to a gravity system as several others have already done so.

 

This weekend was pretty mild in terms of work being done.  Currently at the point where there isn't a whole lot the kiddos can do while I'm working the equipment and with C not feeling well, they all stayed at home.  The dozer guy gave me one more hour Saturday morning and cleaned up about 8 piles of debris I had built up and one last huge old growth stump.

 

I was kinda dragging so I didn't get out there until about 10am (really slacking).  The first item on my agenda was digging out the perc holes since the Health Dept will be coming out to inspect within the the next 1-2 weeks.  We have a Case Backhoe out there to use and John dug the perc holes but Mike (septic design guy) told me to clean them out, make them deeper (5'-6'), and provide a ramp for the inspector to walk down.  Now that I have a excavator out there, I used the 36" bucket to work on the four perc holes.

 

1 of 4 perc holes

 

Over the past two weekends, I used the excavator to pick up alot of boulders (75-200lbs) and setting them aside.  After digging the perc holes, the rest of the day was spent using the Dingo to pick up all the large rocks I had stock piled.  The 'rock climbing wall', as S calls it, is getting pretty large :-)  There are at least thirty 150+lb and over a hundred 50+lb rocks so far which will make for nice landscaping and water features.

 

I shut off early because the wife and I went out to see The Music Man (my first time ever seeing it anywhere).  It was nice to get out and enjoy an evening with C and get a short break from the crum snatchers.

 

On Sunday, I gathered up another serveral more piles of underbrush and left over stuff from the dozer work on Saturday.  Working alone made it a little tougher as I used the miniEx to load up the dump trailer, then drive it over to the 'garbage' section to unload, and then repeat.  After I was done, it all lots purty.

 



 

After everything was cleaned up, I marked out the corners of the house and garage so we could see clearly how the house laid out. 

 



The family came out to see the progress and we talked about the pros/cons of where the house sits.  In the current location, it gives us the best view of the mountain but also puts us on the east side where there are fewer trees from the front.  We decided to leave it where it is but it meant I had take down four more trees (circled below) in the front as it blocked access to the garage.  We are going to have a large circle drive - from the east, ir weaves through the trees and from the west, it is just makes an 'S' curve.  It will look pretty sweet once complete.

While the family was out there, got B and S up on the dozer for a little ride.  B thought he could run along the tracks while I moving but we told him that only happens in the cartoons ... so he was content just hanging off the side.

 

 

The Rock

and I'm not talking about Dwayne Johnson of WWE.

I told my mom about one rock that weighs about 4000 lbs (the mini ex can lift 5000 and I was getting close to maxing it out) and she wanted to see a picture.  It is approx 4' x 2.5' x 1'+ ... definitely one big rock!!

 

B and I did a quick stop out there this afternoon to check on the equipment, don't like leaving it out at the property when I'm not working morning to night. 

 

The dozer guy gave me another 1 hour of work today and did rough grade for about 70% of the area.

 

He said he should finish tomorrow (about 1 more hour) and then we will be able to accurately map out the house location  and then work on all the minor clearing, chipping, cutting up trees, etc for the next couple of months.  I have a good bit of travel forthcoming so it's good we are getting all the outside work done while we have been having such good weather during the winter. 

Weekend Work 2.16

Over the holiday weekend, we planned to just keep cleaning and clearing the lot.  The priority was the front area where I thinned out the trees and there was a lot of brush, old growth logs, fallen trees, ...  Really hard to walk through this stuff.

I borrowed a trailer from a colleague on Saturday to take the mini excavator out to the property so I didn't actually get started until about 1030 or so.  It was cold and rainy but it was nice inside the cab.  I pulled out five more trees that were down the slope that the Dingo couldn't pull out and limbed them.  Left the branches for the family as the kids do a good job with that activity. 

I met one of the lot owners (he actually owns six) and has a reputation of bullying and generally not being a nice person.  He introduced himself as a neighbor and I was happy to meet someone new.  I quickly realized who he was and my guard went up. 

Without going into painstaking detail (I outlined a two page document to the board describing the incident), he basically told me that because he owns premium lots (no such thing), paid a much higher price than I did (he purchased when the market was high), and the view covenant of the CCNRs says my house can't be visible in his view corridor  (it stipulates you cannot block the snow cap portion of the mountain, nothing about screening a house or any such thing as a view corridor) or else he will take legal action against me (he's not authorized on behalf of the board nor does he have any legal right to do so).  I also found out that he came onto my property (before I purchased) and fell about 20 trees so he could have a full view of the foothills below the mountain (he only has permission to have trees topped if they block the snow cap portion ONLY).  About two weeks ago, he got into a very heated argument with another lot owner who is building and told him he would cut his fence to come onto his property and cut trees down if they were blocking his view.  Unbelieveable.  Note that he doesn't actually live here nor has any plans to. 

Worked until dark and then headed home.

Sunday afternoon was more of the same work and the family stayed home.  The wife had work to do and the kids were more than happy to clean their rooms instead of coming out :-(

Everyone was off on Monday but lots of activities going on.  The wife (C) and son (B) did a 5k that was for a teenager that got paralyzed.  This was probably about the seventh 5k for B but his legs were bothering him so C walked with him for about a mile and then she took off ... still got 3rd female overall.  I didn't get to run as I stayed home with S - I ran later that night with a time of 21:58 (7:04/mile).  Not my best time but I haven't been training for short distance recently, still on the HIM plan.  Anyway, they got home about 1030 and then I headed back out to the property.

Spent most of the time clearing the front area and is really starting to open up.  We plan to landscape and put walking paths through here.

The stumps will be piled off the side and chopped up later.  The piles of underbrush which now is about 30 yards worth will also be pushed off and as it dies/browns, it will be burned with the stumps at some point in the future.

The rock pile is growing and S loves climbing all over them.  The rocks on the right side are about 200-500lbs each although they don't look that big in the picture.  Will be really nice for the huge water feature I will be building.

Collection of rocks

I think I'm done with trees until we get to foundation excavaction time and see if anymore need to come down.

The last thing I did before leaving was to level out the entry way.  You couldn't really tell from one of the earlier pictures but the dark area on the left was mounded up (previous perc hole).  The side was about 2' higher making the drive about 10' across.  After I scraped it down and cleaned it up, the drive is now about 20' across and much easier getting in and out with trailers.

Moving Stumps

I have stumped (i.e dug out of ground) most of the trees I fell with the exception of the recent ones.  There were five huge old growth stumps that I couldn't budge but I was only using a 4ton mini excavator.  I have just piled the stumps in the middle of the cleared area to keep them out of the way but it makes it look 'busy' and not open. 

Originally we had planned to burn but it is illegal to do anything more than a 3' x 5' fire so we will just move them off in the wood line along the east property line and then burn them one at a time in the future.  Since there are still a lot of saplings, scotch broom, and some remaining underbrush in the cleared area, decided we should go ahead with some bigger equipment to get it ready to really stake out and plan for foundation excavation (although that probably wont happen until May).  John (our friends that bought the 5acres behind us and the guy pulling chains in an earlier post) has worked a deal to trade upholstry/body work for some land clearing.  So, he has a team clearing a HUGE area on his property for the house and a 70' shop (sweet).  After they finished, they came my way and are spending a couple hours.  Not sure the damage yet since I don't do body work but maybe I can architect an enterprise solution for them :-0



 After he piled up all the stumps, he grabs them and chunks them toward the side and then moves over to place them along the side property line.  Nothing like a 20T beast to throw stuff around like a rag doll.

 

This is 1/2 of one of the huge old growth stumps

 

Making quick work of the pile

 

Here's a quick video of the action

 

Weekend Work

On Thursday, met with the designer to go over more details to get to the point where we can finalize.  Met for about an hour and was very productive; made a lot of minor tweaks and went over many variations of the front elevation.  Here is the leading candidate:

Here is an early rendition looking from the side. 

This weekend was a little less productive as we had several personal engagments going on but was able to still get a few things done.

We marked the (tentative) front left corner of the house and the angle we want the house to go so it would line up how we planned.  With a little math and two long tape measures (300' & 100'), we marked out the other three corners of the house.  They weren't exact but close enough to give an idea of how large the footprint was and how much more clearing needed to be done.

The ground slopes away front to back about three feet over a 50' run which is good for a daylight basement.  Since I will be going up 2', I only have to excavate out about another 4' but with 5 acres, have plenty of room to extend and swell out. 

The guy doing the septic redesign/storm water design/site plan was supposed to come out Saturday and take a look at the proposed house location.  He was supposed to check the perc holes and let me know if I need to do any more work to those dug out areas before the health department comes out to inspect.  Well, he failed to show up and haven't heard from him.  Hope everything is ok but hate when people don't show up or call when they are supposed to.  His price is very good considering all the plans he is doing for us and getting an engineer stamp but hopefully it wont come back to bite us.

I fell another 6-8 trees and the family added the branches to the pile after I cut.  I think we are almost done with taking down trees so B really wants to get the chipper out there to make some mulch.  It will cost $180 to rent for the day but I estimate we will get at least 30-40 yds of mulch.  After we get the remaining stumps out and level out the area, we will be able to have a much clearer picture.  Maybe a couple more trees but not many.

Septic Redesign

This weekend was short in terms of progress at the property.  I got a late start because three of us are sick and slept in until after 9am ... amazing but it felt good.  There was some miscommunication about the time I was supposed to meet a guy that will be redesigning our septic system so instead of starting at 10am, it was more like 1130.

The current septic design that was approved by the health department about 5 years ago (when the original developer planned for the home sites) has expired.  It was also designed for a pressure system and we want to go with a gravity system that is cheaper.

Finally we connected and he (Mike) walked around and 'surveyed' the property and I showed him where I want to put the primary/secondary drain field.  He said it was fine and I will now dig the four perc holes around that area for the county to inspect.  I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I have to have a site plan that is drawn up by an engineer (his stamp) because we have more than 5000 sq ft impervious surface (long gravel driveway, roof, sidewalks) and an engineered drainage plan.  Mike is also doing both of these.  I can draw up the exactly same site/drainage plan but they will tear it apart or not approve ... but if he puts his stamp on it then they just approve on the spot.  Crazy, just more money that I have to spend that I think is unessecary.  It is what it is so I just move on to bigger things.

After lunch, the family showed up to help out for a couple hours.

The wife (C) pulling branches from the recent limbed trees.  S supervising.

 It was great to have them out there to help out even though S was still feeling sick.  They stayed out for about 2-3 hours clearing out all the remaining branches that I have been cutting down to open up the area.

B is pulling a big load up the hill

Even S did a great job ... when she worked :-)

After all the branches were picked up, about ten Dingo loads, they were getting ready to leave.  S was getting cold so B gave up his jacket for his little sis, that was pretty cool

 

The brush pile is HUGE now and I will be bringing a chipper within the next two weeks to turn it into useful material.  I can only imagine how many yards we will get out of this..

No work was done on Sunday but John and I went on a 3 hour trip in the afternoon to pick up an auger and ripper for the Dingo.  I can't wait to use the ripper to start pulling out all the underbrush that has covered up the forest floor.  With all the rocks, the auger will make short work of all holes for posts and landscaping.