Forms and Footings

 Day 7 finds the concrete contractor and his crew building the forms for the foundation footings.  

The foundation doesn't actually drop down in front; that's where the 4' frost wall will be.  

 

Day 8

The forms are set and the concrete truck has arrived!  Holy smokes, the divots that truck put in the lawn are insane.  You would think after all these years the soil around the house would be quite compacted, but I guess you don't know exactly how compacted until you have a massive truck weighing a couple tons drive over your lawn.  

Once that's set up and cured, they'll start putting up the wall forms.

Busy times here at Stoneridge Farm!

The Big Dig, Now with Septic

 The excavating contractor is done with the foundation hole, and has moved on to the septic system.  He's built a massive ramp out of dirt and stone for various large equipment to maneuver around the site.  The septic truck that's coming to pump the old tank, the truck that's bringing the new tank, the concrete truck for the foundation work...it's a lot, and most of this work will be buried underground.  

Day 5

treasures!!! an old spoke hubcap

   Day 6

tanks a lot

Tomorrow the concrete guy should be here building forms, and the excavator will start the new leach field.  Fun, fun!

The Big Dig

                                                                                 Day 3

                                                                            Day 4

Here we go!

 We have broken ground!  After two years of waiting - almost two years to the day since I sold my house - my new home is finally becoming a reality.  

Day 1:

Day 2:

My brother asked if they had dug up anything interesting.  Unfortunately, the only thing so far is a section of railroad track that had been part of one of my mother's gardens.  No artifacts, no Jimmy Hoffa, no buried treasure...yet.

Deck Be Gone

 So the rest of the deck is off, and the house looks a little bit naked.

Once again we called on Corey and his Big Ol' Tractor to give us a hand.  He lifted one end of the deck frame with a forklift attachment, and he and I (mostly him) pried the deck off the house.  He was able to move it in one piece.

tiny photos by Sue (my mom)

 I had him set the frame aside where it can take up space until I get the chance to start cutting it apart, most likely next year.  In the meantime, if anyone asks, this is where we'll be having the live band every Friday night.

We also picked the walls for the best stones and stashed them nearby.  Disturbing an underground yellow jacket nest kind of cut that project short, but we managed to get a nice stockpile started.

Permit is also in hand, sooo 

LET'S BUILD AN ADDITION!!!

 

*crickets*

It's Finally Happening!

 The contractor has given me an estimate for the addition, the financial part of the process is underway, and it looks like we'll be breaking ground by the end of the month if all goes well.  Finally!  After two years of waiting, it's finally happening!

I had planned to work on the track fence this weekend, but with this news we decided to begin removing the old deck on the side of the existing house.  

 

My uncle is here for the weekend, so we put him right to work.  Between him, my mom, Neil, and I, we were able to get the pergola down in no time.  Neil and I then moved on to the deck railings, which I decided to keep and use as fencing around my gardens at some point.  Once those were off, we moved on to the decking.  What a chore pulling those planks!  They were both nailed and screwed down, and most of the screw heads snapped off if we tried to take them out with a screwdriver.  We managed to get about a third of the boards off Saturday.  On Sunday, Mom and I worked most of the day to remove the rest of the decking.  

Voilà!

 

We're planning to leave the frame intact and once it's off the house, cut it into sections to use as pre-made raised garden beds.  Pressure treated lumber is in short supply with the whole Covid thing going on and people stuck at home doing all kinds of improvement projects, so this is a win for us.

We also need to move the two little stone walls before excavation begins.  They're made from small fieldstone that's weathered nicely, so I don't want them just bulldozed up.

It's finally starting to feel real!  I can't wait to have my own space again, and I'm sure my mom can't wait to have her house to herself once more.

Race the Rain

 After I installed the first handful of posts for the track, we had a good rain.  It packed the dirt around the posts nicely and really helped to set them.  Knowing this, and seeing the long range forecast calling for sporadic rainfall and one good day of rain early this week, I was determined to install all of the posts - about 40 of them - while the dirt piles were dry and workable.  I was able to achieve this goal with the exception of one root ridden hole that requires a little extra soil.   All that's left to do is put the pipe panel section up, install gates, and start on the no-climb fencing.

 

Not bad for a crippled up old fat broad.  

Also, I swear a week ago everything was green.

Suddenly, Autumn.

Behold!

 Reputa with her new accessory. 

Works pissah!  

Considering it's made to move fluffy snow, it's working pretty good pushing dirt and rocks.  I've put in three posts in the time it would have taken me to do two by hand, but that's mostly because I would have to stop and bitch about how much my back hurt.  With this setup, I'm workin' hard by hardly workin'. 

Anybody need a mountain moved?  😁

Slow going

 I've been busy, but it's not "WOW!  Look what I've accomplished!" busy.  Just getting a lot of little things done as summer winds down and fall sets in. We've had a couple good frosts, so I've started pulling plants in the vegetable garden.  It looks so naked after being so lush all summer.

The track fence is going up very slowly.  I hadn't thought about how difficult it would be to fill those massive holes by hand.  Trying to hold a post in the hole, then using my feet to scrape dirt and rock in to try to keep the post upright, then shoveling in some more dirt and stones, leveling, tamping, leveling, shoveling, rolling large stones back into the hole, leveling, tamping...I'm averaging 2 posts per hour, and my back usually gives out by that point.  I purchased a small snow plow for Reputa with the intention of using it as a grader blade and pushing the dirt, but it doesn't seem to fit, despite the model numbers matching up and everything I've read saying this plow should fit that tractor.  My neighbor is working on retrofitting it to work, so fingers crossed.  In the meantime...

 I purchased a back pack sprayer and tried spraying the vegetation within the track with vinegar, but it doesn't seem to have done much to kill the leaves.  Then again, we had a brief rain shower the next day, so it was probably washed off.  I'll try again.

I've started to tackle the weedy mess on the tiered garden bank, too.  The drought certainly hasn't bothered the crab grass and weeds at all.

About an hour of hand pulling and pitchfork work later...

I'm debating whether to pull that tier out and start over, or leave it and just move on.  I think I'll build the next two tiers and see how much the bottom one bothers me.  

Onward and upward.

Murphy's Law

I think I'll get Reputa out and mow the bittersweet vines in the track area. 

 *blows a belt on the mower deck* 

No worries, I'll fire up my recently serviced walk behind trimmer and use that. 

*blows a belt on the walk behind trimmer* 

 Ohhhhhkay. I'll take the mower deck off and use Reputa to pull some small stumps and trees with the Brush Grubber. 

*Brush Grubber loses clip and washer that holds gripper in place, grippers close on my fingers* 

Well now...guess I'll put up some sections of pipe fence. 

*Cue the hornets that are living inside the pipe fence* 

Grrrr. I guess now that I have holes dug, I'll start putting in fence posts. 

*Cue the hornets that built nests in the pile of wooden fence posts* 

ALL RIGHTY THEN.

The Track - Phase Two

 It's been a few weeks since I had the york raking done, and I'm ready to lay out the first part of the track for fencing.  At my last house people good-naturedly teased me about my abundance of fence.  

I loves me a good fence.

I'm not a huge fan of electric fence for livestock; I like it for sections of pasture where the mules will be for short amounts of time, like the grazing pasture, but for a permanent paddock area I prefer a permanent fence. When we lose power (which we inevitably do), I don't want to hinge my bets on a non-electrified electric fence to keep in any kind of livestock.  I've had a few loose animals in the past, and it's not as much fun rounding them up as Funniest Home Videos would have you believe. 

So, my fence.  I'm using a combination of pipe panels and pressure treated posts with no-climb horse fence.  I began by setting up my "chute"; the alley from the main paddock to the track.  I had planned to do the outer fence in the woven wire, and the inner fence in pipe panels, but I quickly ran out of pipe panels.

 

 

 

I still need to go along and set T-posts at every other junction to reinforce the panels.  I had quite a nasty surprise in the last four panels I set up.  I'd dragged them out into the pasture months ago and piled them up, and apparently hornets decided the hollow pipes were a perfect place to build a nest.  Luckily I was only stung once before I figured it out.  You know, for an old fat chick I can really haul ass when I need to.  

Once that was done and I knew how far my panels would go, I dragged out my step in posts and started working on where I wanted the rest of the fence.  I love those posts; I bought them through Amazon Warehouse and got a great deal.  They are like the duct tape of posts - so handy, so useful, so easy.  Not something I'd use permanently, but I love them for roping off newly seeded lawn, supporting taller plants in the garden, and blocking off temporary areas in the grazing pasture.  They're easy to put in, easy to move around, and easy to remove. The clips worked perfectly to hold my measuring tape, and I was able to set them every 10 feet.  After adjusting for gates in various spots, I had a good roadmap set up and was ready to start digging.

At my last house I dug every single fence post hole by hand.  The result?  Nice looking fences.  Also, worsened back issues, a wonky upper rib, smashed fingers, and tendonitis in both elbows that still bothers me to this day.  Digging in New Hampshire is no walk in the park thanks to the abundance of stone in our soil.  My mom's farm is called Stoneridge Farm, an homage to the widespread ledge and boulders that live beneath the Earth's crust on this tiny 8 acre plot.  Dig holes with a manual post hole digger, pry bar, and shovel?  Thanks, but no thanks.  Instead I once again enlisted the services of Corey from CMP Home and Property Maintenance.  Corey came over with his tractor powered post hole digger and was able to dig 3 holes before something inside it blew.  I think we both knew that was coming.  He ended up digging 52 of the 55 holes with his backhoe.  

Perfect machine drilled holes...

Backhoe dug holes...still better than digging by hand!

You can see some of the roots and larger stones that would have made this a hellish task.

Ugh.  Mostly rocks.  That should be NH's nickname, not "The Granite State".

I had Corey dig holes for two sections; one is the upper section, the other is "The Oaks".  I needed to be able to close off that section when the acorns rain down upon us.  Acorns contain tannic acid that is toxic to equines if eaten.  And of course, my mules will run straight for them, chowing down like it's a free continental breakfast buffet and there's only fifteen minutes left before they need to check out of this Hyatt Regency. 

Behind The Oaks is The Land of the Lost Riding Ring.  I helped my mother build part of the ring years ago, and it was used infrequently by us and her boarder.  Over the years it's grown up and now a small pine grove harbors secrets of horse and mule training past. 

The old riding ring is behind this mess.

 

I can use this fence...if I can get the forest to let it go.

 

 

A cone from obstacle course training.  There are barrels in here somewhere, too, from Kelsey's barrel racing practice.

I'm hoping at some point I can tackle the ring area, and possibly the woods beyond.  There's a lot of land here that hasn't been used at all.  But for now, I have 55 posts to put in, hundreds of feet of fence to get up, and lots of bitching to accomplish while I'm doing it.

Let's get the lead out, Mother.