Construction Diary

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Hi there! I'm Merry, married to Husband for 43 years, 2 grown daughters, 5-1/2 cats (one's feral), 1 dog, living on a little acreage in the Midwest. I am a Christian and like writing Inspirational Christian romance (I have several books out) travel, reading, history, archaeology, sewing, quilting, and writing.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

I've been trying since Sunday to post new pictures of all the happenings as far as the construction.

Blogger claims the problems are fixed. Blogger is wrong.

Anyway - currently, I now have a crawlspace foundation, electricity and my own well water!

When Blogger gets its act together I'll post the pictures for this entire week.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Saturday June 10 2006

Saturday – June 10, 2006

We worked on cleaning the house and cars. Les will be coming Monday for a visit. Afterwards, it was so hot we decided to go to the lake. Echo and Flint have never seen any water except at bathtime. At first, they were reluctant. When they figured out the water cooled them down, they paddled happily.

The buckets in the back of the truck are to be filled with water. We use the water for the flower bushes out in the field. By scooping up lake water on hot days, it doesn’t overpower Mom and Pa’s ancient well and pump.



There is a story behind this carving. Pa carved this alien being with two eyes and placed him as a decoration on his big shavehorse, a woodworking tool. The shavehorse sits outside the garage. Around here people tend to stop and talk to anyone working outside. One day, a stranger, an older man, pulled into the yard. He walked up to the shavehorse and stared at it for a bit, then looked at Pa and quite seriously said “So, you’ve seen them too?” He then told Pa about his visit with the aliens. An hour or two later, the man got into his truck and drove away. Pa said he seemed completely serious. So Pa decided to recarve the alien so people wouldn't be scared. Heres a photo of the original head that scared the man...





The moon came up bright orange through the trees. We drove down to the meadow to get a clear shot – the pine trees were too thick at Whispering Winds, Mom and Pa's place. The name comes from a Louis L’Amour novel, GALLOWAY. My property, Echo Ridge, is named for a character in another Louis L’Amour novel, RIDE THE RIVER, and for where Richard and I met).

Friday - June 9, 2006

The foundation guys arrived today. They did preparation dirt work to pour the foundation crawlspace.



The little John Deere tractor that will scoop the dirt out and make the ground level.



Starting work.



A view of the finished leveling. The front of the house will be at ground level. The back will be about four feet to ground level. The crawlspace will be 4 feet high so maintenance and repairs will be easier to do.














Another view of the finished "hole in the ground."













There is a doe who hides in this brush pile. We believe there is a fawn here, so we're leaving it alone for the moment.













The grass I planted by the garage is growing!













A butterfly on lands on a stalk of Queen Anne's Lace. This patch of wildflowers is right next to the road running to Echo Ridge.













A rabbit stops to munch corn at Mom and Pa's stump feeding area.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Wednesday - June 7, 2006

We have electricity! The electric company sent linemen out to take out the old breaker box and put in a new digital one that can be read from the station - no more meter guys! The previous owner had electrical supply here, but it was a simply hunting camp so there was an outlet attached to a tree to run his camper and a big bug light. The bug light housing rotted to nothing and the tree has grown around the pole the previous owner installed where the bug light used to hang.















Installing the breaker box.














Pa was fascinated by the come-along winch used to raise the transformer.
















Raising the transformer.














Connecting the transformer.














Using the "hot stick" to turn the 7000 volts back on.


Later that afternoon we went down to the lake to check the eagles and see if the babies were ready to learn to fly. Imagine our surprise - Mama and Papa Eagle were in a snag keeping an eye on one of the babies sitting behind them. The baby was obviously nervous and afraid to fly off the snag he'd managed to wing to in the first place!













Papa and Mama Eagle share a snag...keeping an eye on the Baby Eagle on the snag behind them.














Baby Eagle blends so well you can barely see him on the snag. He is flapping his wings - that brownish blur in the crook of the snag is the baby.




Pa took a picture of the primroses near the lake where the eagles live.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Tuesday - June 6, 2006

Bad dogs and Butterflies...

We took a walk down one of the roads that border Corps Of Engineers hunting lands. At one point, Echo spotted an armadillo up a small hill. I had her leash under my arm, but wasn't actually gripping it because I was taking photos of the butterflies. She took off up the hill and into the woods after the armadillo. In seconds she had disappeared from sight. For about 10 minutes, Pa and I beat the bushes. What terrified me was the fact she had a 20 foot metal-cord lead and her 6 foot leash attached to her choke collar. I had horrible visions of finding my strangled dog hanging from a snag in the forest...or not at all. I don't know how it happened really, but thank God I ran almost directly to where she was nosing her way back. Unharmed, but a lesson learned by me...get this dog trained.














The butterfly bushes attract the butterflies - all shapes and sizes! We kept trying to sneak up on this black and blue butterfly - Mom got this photo.













This butterfly is orange and black, not a monarch but similar markings.













We still didn't quite get a good photo of the black and blue butterfly - it was much more skittish than the others.













This yellow butterfly kept fluttering its wings really fast. Like the hummingbirds, it was rarely still enough to get a good photo. As you can see, the camera caught it fluttering.













Pa shakes a milk thistle plant and the parachute seeds fly...I'd never seen it happen, it was wonderful! Little flying miracles...













Mom and Pa walk a tired Flint back home...

Monday - June 5, 2006

Mom and Pa are working on their property in preparation for building a house, too. They've selected the location for the house and have a pretty solid vision of how they want the landscaping. With this in mind, they are planting various shrubs, flowers and saplings so the growing will be a little more mature by the time the house is done. They've walked hill and dell in these parts and found many of their plants at the old abandoned properties around this area. Lilacs, irises, mums, clematis, johnny-jump-ups and forsythia rootlings have found a new home here. Occasionally, Mom will buy a bedraggled plant on sale and nurture it back to life. Maggie gave Mom and I two miniature roses for Mother's Day, but by the time we arrived to visit they'd pretty much died. We believe they were forced to bloom and open for the holiday and didn't have the strength to live. However, a small amount of green remained, so we brought them home. Sure enough, with tender loving care, a transplant into enriched and fertilized soil, and some careful watering they are coming back to life.

Scraping a home from the wilderness is an interesting process. As we use the modern tools that make the job easier, I find myself in awe of the pioneers who did this with so little in the way of industrialized machines. A bulldozer can clear an acre of 50 year old trees in a matter of minutes. The tiller, the box blade and even the grabber tool that breaks up the clumps of soil make our lives easier.

I've seen new houses go up in suburbs and marveled at the efficiency of three months from breaking soil to moving in. I've seen desert blossom overnight when landscapers take bare earth and plant carefully grown greenhouse flora to look good the very next day.

As we wrest my homestead out of the woods, trying to leave as much intact as possible, I wonder if the pioneers had it right. By celebrating every blade of grass, every shrub that grows a flower, every plant that bears fruit, I realise that my home is a work in progress, a place that will be nurtured with my own two hands to create with the tools God has given me. The irises lost in the wilderness by a heap of abandoned bricks are now lovingly tended by my Mom. The wild honeysuckle at the edge of my road leaves a fresh fragrance in the wind every day and an old rose at the back of my property is so gigantic it is its own hedge. We've cleared only some of the land to maintain our wooded paradise.

On Mom and Pa's property, Pa has carefully carved a dirt road meandering around the back of his acreage. When you wanter back where the wild things are, you are shielded from the sun under a leafy canopy of trees. The scent of earth and green growing things scents the air and once in a while you catch a whiff of some wildflower. With this sense of peace comes the knowledge that in our carefully planned niche we've destroyed some of the life that surrounds us. By bringing the soil back to life with new green and growing things, I understand now why gardeners and farmers feel that working the earth brings us closer to God.

Philosophy aside, watching my dogs grow into the beings they were meant to be is a fascinating experience, too. Echo and Flint were spoiled house dogs, only let out occasionally on leashes or our miniscule backyard in Texas. Now they are becoming what my Pa says are "real dogs." Flint is a faithful little fellow who wants to be with his humans and pretty much listens and obeys all the human commands. Echo is not. We believe that somewhere in her ancestry, and very recently at that, had to be a wolf. Her stance, her ever alertness to her surroundings and her predator mode are mind-boggling. People in the know who've worked with wolves and wolf-hybrids assure us that this puppy we got from the pound is probably half-wolf.

If she has the opportunity Echo will chase ANYTHING that runs. This includes rabbits, Mom's cats, armadillos, turkeys, deer, raccons, possums, squirrels...and box turtles. Echo is completely amazed and fascinated by box turtles. She finds one just about every day on our walks. She paws and grunts and snorts, trying to get the closed up little shell to open up so she can see what it is. At no time has she ever tried to bite, eat or slay any of the beasties she's chased. She simply wants to play.

In Texas, a baby squirrel fell out of a tree and dropped at her feet. He landed on his back and when he saw Echo nosing him, he began kicking and screaming for Mama. Echo backed off with a look of hurt surprise and like a person who's never held a screaming baby, she cast about frantically for someone to come help it. When Richard picked it up, dusted it off and put it back in the tree, she relaxed and tried to get it play the game they always played - the squirrel running on the top edge of the fence and Echo running back and forth below it.

Despite her predatory instincts, I suppose Echo is so well-fed it never occurs to her that the prey can also be dinner. To her the chase is a game to be played, no harm, no foul to either player. With that in mind...













The box turtle that Echo flushed on our walk...the poor little beastie was terrified and clammed up so fast I'm not even sure he was open in the first place! They are currently everywhere as their annual migration is taking place. Many a motorist can be seen in these parts stopping on the side of the road to either help a turtle cross or turn them right side up after being swept over by passing cars.













The deer are gourmet eaters of certain flowers. They especially love roses - petals, stalk, thorns and all. With daisies, it's a different story. They only eat the petals. Imagine, dear reader, if you will, a young doe thinking of her Bambi and solemnly saying as she eats the petals..."he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not..."














My tomatoes are growing! This plant is the heirloom Roma tomato famous for rich Italian sauces.













Echo eats grass while Mom and Pa plant the hydrangea. Both Echo and Flint have a strange habit. It was evident in Texas but is much more prevalant here. When I let them out of the pen to romp in the grass, both dogs immediately nose out the tenderest young grass shoots and begin grazing like cattle. They will eat grass for several long minutes. As they romp and play they will stop to chew on any fresh blade of grass they run across. I was told that this grass-chewing usually means an upset stomach in dogs and cats, but they eat well and never seem to have any type of indigestion at all. I make homemade dog food for them as we're fairly certain Flint is allergic to gluten (he had indigestion, gas, couldn't eat and threw up a lot for the first 6 months we had him). Echo will NOT eat the homemade dog food unless it has collard greens or spinach in it. People do not believe me when I tell them this. Richard will vouch for the fact that Echo starved herself for four days when I forgot to put collard greens in her dog food. As I've said before, my dogs march to the beat of different drummer.













Flint rolls in the grass. Although Flint is rolling in this photo, he will also do this exact same pose if someone says "roadkill." I figured everyone uses the term "play dead" and so I taught my dog a different command.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Sunday - June 4, 2006

Today it was overcast and cloudy so Pa decided it was a good time to burn the brush pile. He took the tractor up there, separated the brush out of the logs we plan to chop for firewood and got the fire started. Mom and I came up later to help move the smaller brush and twigs.













Upon arriving up at the Ridge, I checked my grass. Look! See the faint green in the barren-looking soil? My grass is growing!













A photo of the front of the shed.














Pa uses the tractor to haul more brush to the pile.













Although I am pulling this log to the fire, we ended up not burning it as it is the perfect size for firewood.













Mom carries a large sapling to the fire.













Pa started tractoring the cedars over towards the end. Cedars burn fast and bright, so you have to keep an eye on them.













Flint and Echo preferred staying in the car to avoid sweeping a tail or other body parts close to the fire! Naptime was interrupted by me taking their photo. Note Echo's sleepy glare.

Wednesday - June 3, 2006

Today Pa worked on the tractor on his property. Mom and I took the dogs to the back acres and sat in the swing to watch. Echo and Flint love being at the back of the property as Pa has planted a field of grass and has a little road that winds through the woods. Walking and sniffing new territory is always fun.













Of course, any animal is of interest to the dogs. They don't necessarily want to chase them, but they are curious. This armadillo wasn't amused at their curiosity so he rolled over and played dead. Armadilloes do this whenever they feel threatened.














Once the dogs were bored with the "dead" armadillo, they wandered off to pursue other excitement. The armadillo rolled over, got up and ambled away.













Echo then spotted Tiger in the woods and watched him for 15 minutes or so.














Flint searched out the perfect spot and settled in for a nap.

Friday - June 2, 2006

Mom and I had a lot of errands in town today. I had to get the last car safety inspected and registered, go to the courthouse to ask lots of questions, get a copy of my property plat and get a haircut.













My new haircut. It is lighter, cooler and I love it.

Tuesday - May 30, 2006

On days when we can't do much on my property we work on Mom and Pa's property. They are planning to build a house next year. Mom and I mostly take pictures and play with the dogs while Pa does tractor work.

He is removing clay soil from the hilly area on his property and is filling the hole where he pulled out the 8 stumps. The "hole" is actually positioned perfectly with the private side road and is towards the back of their property away from the noise and dust of the main road. This is where they will build their house. The soil must be stable and compacted by next year, so Pa is doing the dirtwork now.













Tiger stalks a butterfly in the field behind where the house will go.













Pa has made a drag road to haul the clay dirt to the building site.














Pa gives Mom a ride to look at the newly flowering primroses by the clay hill.














This photo shows why I keep Echo penned and/or on a long leash at all times for the moment. Although she is gentle, sweet and has one of the most laid-back personalities I've ever seen on a dog, she LOOKS like a black wolf when she is alerting on something. If a stranger saw this animal walking or running towards him/her...I have no doubt they'd be frightened by her looks alone. Rather than taking the risk of scaring someone or having harm done to my dog, we keep her safe. I plan to have my entire 3.8 acres fenced so that Echo can run freely once more.















Flint, on the other hand, looks less threatening to everyone. And in a twist of irony that is not lost on our family, Flint will protect me and Jenny with his life. Even in play, no one can appear obviously threatening towards us. If we make any sort of surprised sound like girly-shrieking over bugs and whatnot, Flint is right there. He WILL growl and prepare to defend us. Although he has nipped at people he thinks may be threatening one of us, he's never touched skin or actually bitten anyone. Our family grants him this one concession because I'm alone a lot and prefer a protective dog.