Logs stacked for next years splitting ...

I stacked a bunch of wood at the bottom of the driveway to help it dry and get it ready for the 2012 splitting season.  It looks like a big stack, so I'm not sure if this is all with the maul, or a rented splitter will be involved for the difficult ones.  

Notice the log on the lower right.  I picked up and found a really large black salamander with bright yellow spots already hibernating under it, so I carefully put the log back and will check again in the late spring.

An experiment on the Septic Field ....

One thing we're not crazy about is the large septic field we have on the lower part of the property. We thought we were really smart when we told Lee, our excavator, to not plant grass as we wanted it to 'go back to nature'. I'm sure all the contractors got a good laugh out of that! What we got instead this summer was random and huge specimens of just about every weed from the Northern and Southern hemispheres! I'm pretty sure there are a few Venus Fly Traps along with rag weed. And Kim thinks she heard one of them say 'Feed me' while weeding, and has yet to return to the 'Little Shop of Horrors' section of our property. Our new cunning, and probably equally hilarious strategy, is to plant wildflowers. We're envisioning the scene from the Wizard of OZ, with all the flowers ... and perhaps a yellow-mulched road. We'll see!

Anyway, we decided to start small and plant about 400 square feet of the area right after the 'Killing Frost', which I decided meant right after the massive October snowstorm that almost froze us to death after power was out for several days.

Here you can see a picture of Kim shoveling some dirt to load a wheelbarrow for me to take down the hill. We needed to put six inches of top soil down. Kim came down to check the progress, casually mentioning she had spread 40 yards of mulch this past summer. I explained that dirt was heavier then mulch, so she decided to throw on her overalls and check it out herself. Let me tell you, this photo is misleading. Kim filled up about three of her green thimble sized wheel barrows and then exited to get ready for a dinner out and left me to moving dirt into the night.

I should also mention that the bag of seeds was about the size a baggie you'd put your kid's sandwich in. When I saw it, I asked Kim, or should I say Jack, where she got the 'magic seeds' from, that were supposed to cover 400 feet. Turns out she mixed them with sand, and covered about half the area...while grumbling about that the package instructions indicating coverage of more. Not bad, and another bag is being delivered via the web for planting next weekend. Anyway, after all that, you can see how small a piece of land we're planting (left). We'll give an update late next spring.
The good thing about planting this fall is that the melting snow of the spring will water the seeds. Which is a good thing, since the area is many hose extensions from the water source.

Lastly, Kim insisted on adding an 'actual size' photo of the seed package(right), sticking to her claim that she was NOT planted a gigantic beanstalk.

Kim's first visit to Tractor Supply ....

On one of our rare Saturday trips outside Kent, I managed to get Kim into a Tractor Supply Store by telling her that they had a great 'Petite' section and were running a sale. There was no way she would pass that up and ended up buying a kind of cowgirl shirt and dog stuff. She told the checkout gals, that she was lured in by her husband claiming a petite department, and they enjoyed telling everyone else in the store that story. Here Kim is hanging with the ladies while checking out her purchase. More northern CT role models for her, since she was very impressed with their knowledge of propane heaters.

Some planting is done ...

Well, we dipped our toes into some landscaping.  Richard from Designing Eden came up with a very nice design for the front of our house and delivered a bunch of mulch and plants.  From there, I dug the holes in the granite and Kim planted.  Here's a couple 'After' shots.

Robbie and Brie immediately began helping with the watering, but I'm pretty sure the plants will survive as they're all native and probably gaining critical nutrients that way.

First neighborhood party at our house August 13

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Sunday ... a day of rest!

We started early today and planted the 'no mow' grass ... no pictures yet of that as I really want to see a few sprouts  before posting.  After that, we focused on building up one of the ledge walls on our back patio.  Here you can see me pulling some granite from the quarry to the back patio.  What you missing is a shot of our pick-up replacing me as we pulled the granite up a hill.

Here's the final product ... we're really proud of this ...  but not looking forward to the morning when we're pretty sure both of us will be suffering from moving these rocks into place.

Kim and I still have a lot of projects that we want to complete before the winter sets in. Among them are  to plant some 'no mow' grass and also to test some wildflowers in the septic area that's now overgrown with weeds.  The first step for both of these was to get some topsoil, aka dirt, delivered. Here are some shots of a half a load dropped off on top of the hill with the rest dropped off at the bottom.  The wheelbarrow will be getting a workout.

Exterior staining complete ...

Over the last week or so, we had a crew come in, stain the house and paint the soffits.  One coat of stain and three coats of paint on the trim. They also installed some wire up on the beams to stop the bird  building next spring. You can see that Kim has done quite a bit of mulching and next up is some landscaping in the front of the house.

A favorite picture

And here is one of our favorite shots ... the south side of the house taken from up in the woods.

Back-filling complete .....

Lee wrapped up back-filling the foundation this week and the house looks much more balanced on the property.  He also spread some mulch, built a few walls and added some top soil.

Here is a picture of Robbie enjoying the crushed stone where the patio will be.  Notice that Lee bordered the patio area with some rocks from our quarry.

And to the left, another picture of the back patio area, but taken from up in the woods.  Kim has spent a lot of time clearing off the ledge around the house and it's really adding a lot of character.

To the right is a shot of the walk out basement area, which will eventually have a small patio about the same size as the graveled area shown.

Here you can see that the area to the right of the barn is now free of the bulldozer that was there for the winter.  It's been cleaned up with some top soil.  We kept a large supply of rocks of course ... not really much choice!

Now, looking at the barn from down on the driveway you can see that we do have some landscaping to be done. Kim just ordered a truckload of mulch, part of which will go over the dirt you see to the right of the barn. Anything to keep out weeds!

On the left side of the house in the front, Lee pushed down the large rocks that make up the retaining wall.  The drop beyond those rocks is pretty steep.

And finally, here is a picture taken as you come up the driveway.  From this angle,  you can see we're missing a tree on the front left side of the house to add balance.

And here is a view from up near the house facing down the driveway.

Father's Day break ....

Mia came up for a long weekend to spend time with her Dad.  We took a hike up by Bull's Bridge on Saturday. A mile or so of the hike was on the Appalachian Trail, so I've only got about another 2,180 to go. Mia let it slip, that if I can't find anyone to hike the trail, she would go. I'm pretty sure she is going to regret that ... or maybe not!

We also had a nice campfire and here you can see Kim, Bob and Mia enjoying being outside with the smoke keeping the bugs away!

The dirt ...

Lee now has two more pieces of equipment on-site as well as some nice top soil in anticipation of the excavation back-filling starting tomorrow.

This is very exciting as once we're done with this step, we plan on having the house stained in early July and then we can plant a few things and really feel moved in.

I've started to build a small retaining wall to the right side of the barn .... the key word being 'started'. The plan in my head calls for a few of them following the foundation up the grade. Anything to try and use the excess rocks we have in our quarry!

Brie is also looking to get involved and hoping to man the wheel barrow during the process.

Well, well .....

After being out of power and then out of water due to no power last weekend, we again found ourselves without water Thursday night after a big thunder storm. Saturday the well pump controller was replaced, but since that still didn't get things flowing, the PVC pipe in the well sleeve was pulled.  At 300 or so feet, a break was discovered and repaired.

We are now totally prepared for losing water pressure. We have several gallon jugs filled in the basement and during an outage, we fill up emptied containers wherever we go.  This weekend, that included the neighbors, the town public restrooms, a local restaurant and hanging the jugs out the windows while we went thorough a car wash. Kim and I are also looking for a sun shower to hang out back and I've been eying outhouse plans on the internet.

Logging

We had family over most of Memorial Day weekend. It was a nice break with good food, a bit of wine and lot's of laughs. However, there was some house related activity.  Cousin Dane was up and gave me a lesson in using a chainsaw.  Here's a couple of pictures of me (aka Mountain Man) down by the woodpile.

Mia also showed her metal and did her share. I always knew she had it in her.

Also, Kim picked up a gas weed-eater and went to town on the driveway.

Pretty soon we'll be operating a Logging Camp along with our Granite Quarry.  What's next ... Farming?

Gardening has begun . . . sort of . . .

We're in a holding pattern on landscaping until the backfilling of the foundation is complete and we put some top soil around the house. Our cunning plan is to just let most everything go back to nature and here we see Kim starting that process. She's taking blueberry bushes from the woods and replanting them in some of the bare area nearer the house. I guess letting things 'go back' really means helping it along.

While I was out watching Kim work I took this picture of some exposed ledge behind her. Now this is the look we're aiming for ... may take a few years to get right though.

Spring may actually have arrived ....

I took this picture the other night.  It's the view out the back of our house around dusk on a misty evening.  Nice to finally see green.

Dinner with Silvia, Owen and Tom

Silvia, Owen and Tom came over for dinner last Saturday night, which is house building related as Tom created our kitchen, bathroom and mudroom counter tops out of concrete. It was an informal get together but both Kim and Silvia created some great dishes. These are some shots of the Kim's appetizers before out guests arrived. Should have gotten a photo of Silvia's spectacular Fromage Blanc and salad!

And here is a shot of the happy family right before we headed into dinner. Robbie took advantage of the empty room and started the dishwashing by licking the remaining dish clean.

Mother's Day

So ... on Saturday I left Robbie and Brie on the corner down in Kent and they walked down to the Kent Greenhouse to pick up some plants for Mother's Day.  Now,  I told them that they were for the Barn window box, so the plants needed to flourish without direct sunlight.  Well ... they just weren't listening and got ones that needed a lot of direct sunlight, so Kim and I had to go back on Mother's Day and trade them in.  Here's Kim trying to hide behind the new plants.

On Monday, Kim, Robbie and Brie put them in the flower box ... they look great!