Home site clearing

The last several weeks we've been hard at it to clear the home site of the last few trees before the builder starts excavation of the foundation and starts the home building.

We have created about another three cords of wood from the crooked hardwoods we cut and bucked.  The larger straight trees we want to keep for future projects (beams and other decorative features we'd like to have in the home) are to be cut down.  The good ones are oak and hickory.

A decent sized oak being felled:
Then skidded out to the landing with a Farmi 351P winch and MF 240 tractor where we buck it and split it (unless we keep it for later milling)

Long awaited blog update for Cabin

Since it was May since I did the last blog update I figured I would start from early June the goings on.  Since NC is pretty much the epicenter of reported tick-borne illnesses in the US it would stand to reason that my chance of contracting this is pretty high given that we are in the woods just above very weekend.  Around June 5 I started experiencing the classic symptoms (headache, low grade fever, sluggishness) and went to the doc to be checked.  Upon my indicating I had been bitten several times by ticks in the past weeks she took a blood sample and prescribed doxycyline.  Five days after the doctor's visit I got the spots (which was actually my capillaries leaking under the skin - very bad news...).  However the good news is that I was already on the treatment and starting to get better so the damage was not worsening.  The spots disappeared another 3-4 days later and I felt much better.

This is what RMSF looks like after about day 5 of when I suspected I had a tick-borne illness. I was on doxycyline at this point for 4 full days.

 The cabin worked continued in earnest in July, August and September with us finishing the last bit of the deck (to be used as scaffolding for siding the dormer).

Taking a break to enjoy the quietness.

Completed siding and partial painting done

Beech log in front of the cabin has taken on some beautiful fungal arrangements

October 16

We added this awning after Hurricane Matthew dumped a whole lot of rain on us.  We decided we needed to redirect water from the main roof above the door off to the ground as water splashed on the walkway deck onto the door sill and leaked into the cabin.

Oct. 16

Exterior cabin finishes nearly done to make it ready for winter.  Needs deck railing and then we move inside to build the loft.

Logging with the Farmi

With cold, but dry weather over the weekend it made for ideal conditions to do some tree clearing for the homesite.  This will take a number of weekends to complete and we are hoping to have this done before the trees bud.  Fortunately we have some labor saving machinery to help make this adventure more productive and quite a bit safer than when we cleared the driveway.  Any trees that get hung up in a fall we can put the winch on it and pull it down with relative ease from a distance.  When we did the driveway we had to hook up a come-along winch (hand powered) with a rope.  The tractor powered winch will easily pull 3-4 logs at a time from the forest up to the skid plate of the winch where I can then latch them and drag them up to the wood shed area where we limb, buck and split them into firewood.

Autumn Harvest

From roughly late August through October some of our trees produce copious quantities of fruit and nuts.  We were lucky this year to have found some ripe pawpaw fruit in a few locations around the property.  The American pawpaw is a native tree that bears a fruit which, to me, has a taste somewhere between banana and mango.  For it to be fully enjoyed it must be eaten after it has fallen off the tree naturally.  Whenever we picked them from the tree they tended to be a bit hard and not as succulent.  The turnoff for some might be the rather ugly appearance they have after becoming ripe.  They are mottled grayish-black.  But don't be deterred by their looks as they are a delicious fruit that is rich in nutrients.   There are hundreds of these slender trees growing naturally along the creek banks, floodplain and slopes of our land.

Coming a little later are the hickory nuts.  We have several mature hickory trees probably about 30-50 years old that produce vast numbers of nuts.  Elizabeth collected probably close to 30 lbs.  While they contain quite tasty meat they are a lot of work to crack.  We tried using a hammer and a vise and both ways work but the best device is one we recently purchased exclusively for breaking them open.  It works great.

Besides the bountiful forest harvest this year we also managed to get some fruit and vegetables from the hugelkultur beds we started in the spring next to the barn.  We planted a bit late so the watermelon crop yield was low.  One of our main goals was to see how well the swaled beds would be able to capture and retain moisture on the slope as we had made them on contour, filled them with trees, wood chips and soil.  We had about normal amounts of rain and the temps were in the upper 90's frequently in July and August and yet in spite of our only being there about every 7-8 days very little additional water was needed to keep them going.

Farmi Winch Trial

We got around to finally testing the Farmi 351P logging winch Saturday.  With autumn around the corner and the impending house clearing that we have planned this winter it was time to set it up, learn its operation and do a test.  The first thing we had to do was read the manual!  With the various forces involved with operating this sort of machinery there is really is no second chance for an operator that does not follow recommended procedures for its safe operations.  In order to run on our Massey tractor we had to size the PTO shaft length to fit our tractor and this required some measurements and cutting of the shaft according to the manufacturer's instructions.  It was a rather finicky task trying to connect the PTO onto the Farmi's splined shaft due to the lack of space around Farmi's PTO guard.  However with a bit of patience, disassembly of the PTO guard (and then reassembly once installed!) we managed to get it done properly and working safely with all guards correctly in place.

With 34 acres of forest around us, a small scale logging winch/skidder seemed justified since our plan is to selectively harvest timber in the years to come for fuel wood to heat our home and perhaps to sell on spot basis if the economics are right.  We had considered the Wallenstein model of winch but instead decided on the Farmi brand (Finnish company) due the ideal mix of performance (log pulling capacity =7,720 lbs), price, reliability and reputation.  It is really a solidly built piece of equipment and I imagine that it will far outlast us!

Rat Snake!

Over the Memorial Day weekend we spent a bit of time at Beechnut Hill farm splitting some wood, watering the newly planted veggies and installing the new (temporary) shower.  As we were walking near the woodshed this rat snake slithered across our path and up a tree to "hide".  About an hour later we saw him again slither under the pile of logs near the woodshed.  These are very common (and beneficial) snakes in our area that will help to keep the mice population and other small rodents in check.  They are known to invade chicken coops and steal an egg to eat.

Rat Snake

A little more to the stack each time!

The shower connects to the garden hose which hooks up to the well pump pressure tank for a nice bone chilling shower.  Excellent after a long session of splitting wood when its 90F outside.

Handles added to the sliding barn doors

Farm progress and "farmer problems"

The wood shed is finally done!  We ended up going the easy route and used wire fence to be the walls which was easy, cheap and quick to install.  The added benefit of this material is that it allows complete air circulation from all directions.  Additionally we had reasoned that no one would be able to see the sides and rear wall anyway.  So the next thing is to get a few more pallets to stack the wood on, rent a splitter and make an all day event out getting the wood split and stacked.

It was a busy two days as we also took advantage of the dry conditions and had 36 more tons of crusher run delivered to finish up the barn floor leveling.  We ran in too a mechanical problem with the hydrostatic steering on the tractor causing us to shut down for awhile to fix the problem (sort of).  The steering ram cylinder came loose from vibration (all four bolts were still in place but the cap screws were not engaged!).  We managed to get them realigned and properly tightened without cross threading the screws.  This fix allowed me to continue using it but now I think there is either a problem with the steering pump pressure or the cylinders are bad.  At about the same time this happened Elizabeth had declared that the well pump had quit working or the well was dry!  After taking a short break and thinking about the issue I walked over and pressed the circuit breaker button on the generator and it reset.  Well pump not broken and well not dry. :)

Ramp nearly level with bottom of door now

Moving and leveling with FEL.  The Farmi was only along for the ride to counter weight the front end.  I should have put the rear blade on the for additional leveling capability.

Elizabeth was very busy planting tomatoes, zuchini, watermelon and ochra in the hugelkultur beds which we amended with topsoil removed from the wood shed.  The farm is coming along nicely!

The cute and adorable little fellow was found in the wood shed when we were excavating the topsoil

2-Bottom Plow for Swale Making

We've been looking for a used one or two bottom plow now for awhile so we can build swales on contour for slowing water down on slopes.  Of course the plow can and will likely be used for making a good sized garden too.  A local fellow in Reidsville, NC posted a nice old used 16" Ford 101-61 bottom plow on Craigslist and worked out a good deal.  He restored the original look fairly well with a fresh coat of paint.  The plow shares were in good shape but it was missing the coulters.  Not sure if this is critical for us yet but we can always buy a pair later if we find we will need them.

Plow being unloaded from the trailer:

Installing Pole Barn Floor

Over the last week more progress on the pole barn was made.  The roof sheeting and membrane was completed and the wall framing was started.  A few truck loads of crusher run gravel was added for the floor base.  Eventually we will pour a concrete floor but for now we'll live with a gravel floor.

January 3, 2014

We went up to the land today and finished piling up the brush we had cut. Also carried the concrete footings into the center of the lot for our outhouse. Had to take a few breaks along the way - they are really heavy! We also cut down some "hanging" trees so we would have some seasoned firewood to burn. It was really cold today, so we really enjoyed our thermos of hot tea :)

The road is really coming along

July 2013

The road to our homestead site

After years of searching for land we finally found the perfect homestead site in rural North Carolina. Close enough to the city to commute to work, yet quiet, remote and woodsy! We purchased 24 acres in two different parcels. A 10 acre parcel that will be managed as a woodlot, and a 14 acre parcel that will be transformed into our homestead. Both lots are mixed hardwood with some areas of pine. They were selectively logged several years ago, but there are still lots of very large trees on the land. The sites are hilly with several different ecosystems in each.

Wetland

Entrance to our homestead

One of my favorite ecosystems on our homestead lot is a wetland area that is adjacent to a year round creek at the back of the lot. It is not always wet, but floods after several days of rain.

Our goal for our homestead is to clear a road, then clear an area for a house, drive shed and barn, make terraced vegetable gardens and have some areas of pasture for goats and maybe a horse. We definitely plan to have chickens.  We have a lot of work to do!

 

 August 2013

We have spent many hours marking our property boundaries (wouldn't want to build a road on our neighbor's land!) and making trails. We have made some good use of the Husqvarna 343 FR brush cutter saw to clear saplings. There sure are a lot of ticks this year! The other vile creature that we have become acquainted with is the chigger. As former Canadians, we were not familiar with the chigger, but have become very well acquainted as we spend time at our beautiful land. We spent a lot of time walking the whole property so that we could find the best place to locate a home.

October 2013

 We made a plan for our homestead design and had the health department come out and approve where we wanted to locate our well and septic field. We located the house centrally but well above the flood plain of our triangular shaped lot. We are planning on practicing permaculture based on concepts presented by Ben Falk in an excellent book called The Resilient Farm and Homestead. Our ultimate goal is to live as sustainably as possible.

November 2013

First stage of road clearing

 We started clearing trees in preparation for road construction. We are clearing the trees ourselves to save money, and because it is just fun to be out working in the woods! This required the purchase of a bigger chainsaw (Husqvarna Rancher 450) as some of the trees are fairly large. We plan to heat our home with an efficient wood stove, so the cleared trees were bucked and stacked. We will have to move these piles of firewood to a sheltered woodshed later, after the road is built. We are really enjoying working without getting bitten by ticks and chiggers!

Road progress by end of November

We left the stumps so that a bulldozer can come in and push them out. The wood pile is growing. The next stage of the road will involve clearing lots of small brushy trees.

I think we need to start a new wood pile!

Hungry logger

Log shaving station

 December 2013

We had so many tall straight pines that it seemed a shame to cut them all into firewood. One of the side projects is preparing logs to use to build maybe a small log cabin, and also an outhouse. (Some of the workers are complaining about using the bushes...). I have been using a draw knife to shave the bark off these logs.

The outhouse will house a beautiful hand-made composting toilet based on the Loveable Loo plans.  Merry Christmas to me!

Composting toilet

January 2014

We are now in the final stages of road clearing. The rest of the work will be removing small trees and saplings. They are easy to cut down, but a lot of work to drag into piles some of them are entangled in vines and prickly stuff. We have some giant brush piles to deal with now. I think we need to rent a chipper.

This is not so much fun!

Taking a break to visit some of our beautiful beech trees!