Building Site Cleared and Spring is Here

 It took longer than expected, but we now have about a 300 x 200’ clearing in the middle of the woods along with the power easement cleared from the nearest pole on the property.

The easement required a 30 foot wide cut for about 800 feet in preparation for bringing power to the building site. The power company engineer will be out on Tuesday to take final measurements and place stakes where the poles will go. If they have to place more than two poles to get to the building site, it costs $100 per pole and $75 for each guy wire. So, the straighter the shot the better so as to avoid extra guys. Still, I hated to clear that much out of the woods, but we can make use of the space later for larger plantings, such as corn or wheat.

We drove around today to get another look at the fire damage and was surprised at how quickly the grass has grown. In fact, in open areas, you can hardly tell there was a fire. Many of the old dozer piles were consumed by the blaze, which is a   good thing.

Pole Barn Construction

I’ve been debating whether to buy standard 6x6” pressure-treated timbers or to use trees from the property for construction. There are many lying around and near the building site that would be suitable (not the tree to the right, but just wanted to share this beauty). I’m not sure if I’ve already mentioned what building technique I’m planning to take, but after kicking around different approaches, I’ve decided to use a combination of pole-barn and platform framing.

Pole-barn construction is cheaper if you’re not finishing the inside. Of course, I am going to finish the inside. Another advantage is that it’s quicker to get the structure up and cheaper than pouring a foundation. But the main reason I’m using this approach is that I  have “poles” all around me on the property and it is probably the most earthquake resistant of all building methods.

Even though I love working with concrete, it’s very expensive and pretty environmentally-unfriendly to produce. Consequently, the foundation will be posts or poles in the ground 3-4’ with 2x10 girders around the perimeter spaced every 6 feet.

Earthquake, you say? This isn’t California. No, but there lies within a short distance the New Madrid (pronounced “new MA-drid” fault which is predicted to let loose within the next few years and the last time it did (a couple hundred years ago), it reversed the course of the Mississippi river. Anyway, pole-barn construction is somewhat cheaper, easier, allows me to use my own materials for some of it, and is earthquake resistant to boot. I think it’s a good direction. More on construction details as we actually start building.

Spring

“What a beautiful day it is!” I told my wife as we drove out to the property today. “You already said that,” she informed me.  Yes, so I did. But what a beautiful day it was. Around here, the red bud blooms wild in the woods, followed by dogwood. Couldn’t see any dogwood (white blossoms), but the red bud was clear to see.

The oaks are just beginning to leaf out. Please indulge me for a one more picture. This is looking northeast from the west end of the property.

The little hill you see is known locally as Dove Mountain. The use of the word mountain is strictly an Ozarkian term that means little hill slightly higher than the other little hills. Hey, it’s all we have out here. Anyway, it’s reported to be the second highest point in Missouri and is the vestige of an old volcano. You can still find plenty of volcanic rock in the west end of my property.

The “Controlled” Burn and Driveway Progress

Paul started a fire to burn one of the big dozer piles Thursday, but because of the strong wind, it blew into the woods. That in itself is not a problem, since burning the leaves and underbrush is a good thing for a forest every few years. However, this fire quickly went beyond my property into the neighbors.

So, the rural fire department was called in to fight the quickly spreading grass and leaf fire. It ran through a glade on my neighbors property on which were closely scattered cedar trees. These caught and burned quickly, almost exploding with flame. Thanks to the quick work of the fire fighters, assisted a little by myself with a rake and a lot of stomping, we got it under control. It probably travelled through more than 100 acres, but didn’t do much more than burn grass, leaves, and underbrush. The real danger of letting it go was if it made it to Dove mountain, which could have caused some serious timber fires. As a plus, it burned through a few old dozer piles near the edge of my property (above).

We left the fire line on my property to let it take its course through the woods. It looked like a river of fire. I debated whether to leave it or not, but decided that since Paul had dug in some good fire breaks and that it was contained, we left about 11:00pm. I got up and went out at 5:00am to check on it and the fire line had made its way almost through the entire northern half of the 80 acres, leaving a blackened, but much cleaner forest floor. It started raining this evening, putting out the remaining fire.

In the mean time today, 7 more truck loads of “zero to six” rock (a mixture of rock from 6” down to just fines; cheaper and better for this kind of road) were delivered as progress continued covering the road bed from the gate into the building site. They made it in about three quarters of the way before the rains started. 

The building site is almost completely cleared. Just need to finish the edges, widen the road as it enters the clearing, clear the easement for the power lines (about 900’), and do some final grading. It’s turning out well.  This is a view looking to the east past a large white oak and over the pond. This is turning out to be a huge project just to get to the point where we can start the first building. But I love it.

Perspective & Planning

While we’re waiting for the road work to start next week, wanted to document some basic layout information and plans. Above you can see an aerial of the acreage with the location of the clearing (you can’t actually see the clearing yet, since we just made it last week—not sure how long it will take to make it to the mapping services). The map border roughly lies on the property lines. The pond is just to the east of the push pin. The road is clearly visible.

The woods are mainly young oak with some cedar and the occasional ash, hickory, walnut, and a couple of rare maples (where the old house was located).

The lot we are clearing will eventually be about 300’ x 300’, but for now, we’re just doing 200 x 300’. I did quite a bit of research when I developed this lot plan and there are a lot of opinions. I was afraid of getting it wrong, but I really don’t think there are any wrong plans. However, the basic principles are mostly common sense, such as:

• Minimize distance between the most walked-between structures;
• Porch should be south-facing (if you like to catch some winter sun);
• Animal structures and pens should be at least 100’ from the house;
• If you must clear an easement for the power lines (30’ wide in my case), place it behind or out of the line of vision (so you’re not looking down an unsightly row of telephone poles);
• You’ll need to place your well before you decide where the leach lines will go, since, obviously, these need to be separated by at least 100’;
• Figure out what you want and don’t be afraid to start.

Not shown here are plans for a grey water system for shower, bath, kitchen and bathroom sinks, etc., which will be sent out towards either the garden or orchard areas. I’ve found these websites helpful in the planning process:

The Natural Home

Helpful homesteading links

CountrySide: Designing Your Ideal Homestead

Mother Earth News: The Owner Built Home & Homestead

Comments

Sorry about the comments requiring an id. (I’m still pretty new at blogging.) You should now be able to leave comments without an id.

…OK, just press on the Comments link below and you can leave a message of encouragement or something.

…Hello. Anyone out there?

Thanks, Mom, for that nice email.

Clearing the Land: Rained Out

Rain came through Wednesday night and it stayed with us all day Thursday. Needless to say, no progress on the land.

Kissing a Tree

I probably should mention that I kind of backed into a tree on Tuesday when leaving the homestead in the afternoon. I could claim that the tree moved (there was a lot happening with the woods that day), but I think it’s more likely that the dozer guy left that tree on purpose.  You know that sinking feeling you have after the sudden stop and the sound of shattered plastic? It was confirmed when I looked at the back.

Notice the dent in the bumper and the cool custom tail light. I found a replacement for $82 off the internet. So, after pounding out a dimple in the bumper so the tail gate closes all the way and replacing the tail light, it will be as good as new. Poor truck. (What you can’t see are all the other souvenirs left on the bumper, at least one of which was a gift from my favorite daughter-in-law.  Thanks Abbie.)

Power Easement

We did go out today to see how things looked and work out the details of where to cut the power line easement (30 feet wide swath that will extend from the back north-west corner of the cleared lot to the nearest transformer, 900 feet away).

The Pond and the Mud

The road we put in from the end of Nettleton to our gate was fine, but the road from the gate to the clearing (about 1800 feet) was a mess. We will definitely need to lay down a ton (actually closer to 350 ton) of rock. That will be the next project after it dries out next week.

While there, I went down by the pond because the tree frogs were really singing. I took a little footage to capture the moment (I love that sound):

The pond is kind of a mess with the recent rains. Sometime in the future, I’ll have Paul come back and drain it and dig it out and expand it a little. Although I hate to disturb the little pond creatures living in it, clearing out the decades of muck at the bottom will improve the health of the whole system, allow us to stock it with fish, and provide a lot of great silty soil supplement for the garden.

As you can see, the place was a mud hole. And yes, I got stuck. I never get stuck. In fact, this is the first time I’ve gotten stuck in this Tundra. Very embarrassing. Thankfully, Paul was still there with the dozer. He fired it up and pulled me clear. No problem, except a very muddy truck.

After hosing it down, all was good in the world again. The mail man showed up about this time and asked if I’d had enough rain. I really didn’t get what he meant until I offered to wash his mail-mobile, when he explained that it would surely rain again if I washed anything else on wheels. We’ll see.

Clearing the Land: Day Two

When I came out to check on progress in the afternoon, Paul had already started burning the piles, which is a great time to do it, since the dozer is still there to push the wood into the fire. If you try and do this after the dozer leaves, you end up burning a little here and there forever, until, in desperation, you call in another dozer driver to sit there and push the pile together as it burns. Doing it right away while you still have the machinery handy is much cheaper. 

The boss came out with me to make sure we were doing it right. She won’t admit it, but I think Connie secretly loves the smell of dirt and diesel and can’t wait to start digging in the mud. We’ll keep that our little secret.

I love fire. Always have. There’s something about watching and hearing a voracious fire monster devour a heaping pile of tangled brush to make me feel all good inside. (But that’s another therapy session.)

With just the right amount of diesel fuel (NEVER USE GAS), Paul created a hot spot and then just kept pushing the pile together until it caught in earnest.

Oh, and the dozer caught on fire today. Apparently it’s no big deal. Happens all the time. Paul carries around three for four fire extinguishers for just such occasions. But I’m guessing this was more than the run-of-the-mill dozer fire since he steered the beast over to the pond and drove its nose into the deep—just enough to douse the flames. Then all was fine. Oh, the glamour of heavy equipment operator.

I mentioned using gas to Paul (trying to sound all manly and stuff), but he made it very clear that you should never use gas. Well, yes, I knew that. Apparently, gas fumes spread incredibly fast and far and so you can be pouring gas in one part of the pile and lighting a match in another and BOOM! Let’s just all be grown-ups about this and use diesel, not gas. [James, if you’re reading this, we never used gas on any of our brush fires. Right? That’s right, we never did.]

Here is some great fire footage (excuse the noise of the dozer in the background):

And then we came back for more in the evening when things really started crackin’.

Nothing quite like sitting on the tail gate on an early Spring evening watching the fire and listening to the tree frogs. Pretty special stuff. 

One more shot of the burn pile and then I’ve got to go to bed. Enough excitement for one day. Tomorrow (if it doesn’t rain, which is predicted), we should be done with the big dozer work, cleaning up the edges and ready to bring in some rock for the mud hole that will become the driveway. OK. One more night fire video clip:

Clearing the Land: Day One

I hired Paul to clear the building site. He grew up around this very piece of land and had come highly recommended. I soon saw why: He works smart and fast.

I had set flags on a 100 foot grid to layout the building site. This was his first cut from the existing road 300 feet to the end of the building site (due North). This is tough stuff and after beating the woods into submission, we had what was beginning to look like a bonafide building site.

Initially, I intended on using the lumber to build with or as fire-wood. But as I soon learned, the trees are generally small and really close together, and so there isn’t much left after piling up the remains. So, I reconciled myself to clearing as little as necessary for the planned layout and waiting for some quality chain-saw time to harvest building materials and firewood.

By then of the day, about two-thirds of the lot had been cleared and some very large piles of brush began to accumulate. A good start.

The Purchase

  We purchased the land in December 2009. This picture is looking east down the existing road about in the middle of the eastern half of the acreage. If you look really hard (I mean REALLY hard) you can just see a small pond at the end of the road. Oh well, at least we have some water.

This was pasture about 30 years ago, but was allowed to return to woods. And because it hasn't ever been managed, most of the trees are smallish (1-6" diameter). However there are a few very large and beautiful white oak trees that were most likely left standing when the pasture was first carved out of the forest. We aim to keep these. However, they are mostly hollow and lost a few very big branches in an ice storm a couple years ago. One of them is shown above in it's native habitat (before clearing around it).

We just needed to wait for Spring, which was a good thing, since there was an issue getting access to the property from the nearest road. We had been granted an easement by a nearby neighbor, who's property went half-way across an old county road. However, the new owners of the land across the old road were told they owned the entire road bed and that they had purchased "end of road" property. We worked things out between all parties (it's important to be good neighbors) and then cleared the old road bed to gain access. By this time, Winter had begun giving signs of its eminent passing and Spring was finally coming.