Off the Ground

A great week. With Jim's help we went from this.......

......... to this.

Kirk laying the first blocks. We chose Faswall blocks to build our house with. They are made in Philomath, the town next to Corvallis, so in addition to being made from recycled green wood pallets we could also pick them up from the plant. We like the idea that they are made locally by a small independent company and do not have to be shipped thousand of miles





Concrete bumper truck pouring cement to secure the footings

Breaking Ground .........finally

Jim taking pains to make sure everything is level and well formed

Time to fill in holes, lay gravel and prepare the footing. I love it when we have good help!


View of septic system underneath the rainbow.


First job was digging trenches to home all of the conduit for electrical and plumbing. Of course it was wet, cold and difficult to work with, not to mention heavy. Kirk as usual put his back into it without complaint. Finally the sun came out and a little extra help.

Death of a Beauty

Sadly this beautiful Walnut tree had to be removed, we are on a flood plain and thus chose to build on the highest elevation of the field. Somewhat ironic, since we have planted 2,000 new trees on the property in three years. It was heartbreaking to remove the only old growth tree on the site.

Kirk with chain saw making headway.

The Trunk.
One very heavy trunk, which will be our front door.
Removing the stump proved too much for the tractor even after we had loosened all of the surrounding soil, so we too were stumped.
By chance and a huge stroke of luck an old friend of Kirk's showed up the next day with his old Forest Service pick-up. He offered his services and we put the vehicle through it's paces. Several dozen pick-up pulls later and a couple of broken cables, the walnut tree was out. Thank-you Rick Cope and happy retirement!

Guy Fawkes?!

Phase One Complete

Almost two years to date, the garage and shop are finished and have passed the final building inspection. Had Kirk known how much hard work was involved he would have abandoned all ideas of building a home. Now....we can finally start on the house, but time-out first for well earned massages and a good soak in a hot tub.

Rear of building. Love that mural!

When we have time down the road, we will add river rock to the stem wall and paint the white door brown. We should also point out that many of the materials we used are reclaimed or re-cycled, including the doors, interior wall framing and the staircase, also the shakes above the board and batten exterior finish. Thank-you Dave Traut.

Great job Captain! You're the best!!!

Miscellaneous Stuff

During the garage construction there were many asides, like planting trees.
Two thousand to be precise, mostly native species, Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, Ponderosa Pine and Incense Cedar. Broadleaf natives will be in the next phase

Why so many trees? Our kids inheritance, these will not mature in our lifetime, but wehope with this many board feet of lumber we can die poor and the kids can be creative and make a few bucks.

Geomyidae or more commonly Pocket Gopher. Bloody nuisance. We were very concerned that our trees would be destroyed, but for whatever reason the rodents are more interested in other subterranean fodder, perhaps we have the first species of carnivorous gophers! We are accepting all gopher extermination remedies beyond, traps, gas, fire, terrier dogs, poison and shot guns because we have already tried these to no avail.

Kirk built a pump house

Pretty elaborate but at least it is only one story

Something to BARK about

If you guessed bark, keep reading.
We had the opportunity to bid on a tree that had spent it's life in the Middle Fork of the Willamette Forest. This tree was felled as part of the forest maintenance programme. Healthy trees make healthy forests.

The tree was felled in the Summer of 2009 so it was quite dry when we first saw it in Dec 09. 130' long and just beautiful cedar.

Base of tree

I convinced Kirk that we should hire a logging company to haul the tree out of the forest. There are so only many big boy toys that a man needs and fortunately this is one thing that you CANNOT buy at Jerrys

I'm still trying to imagine one of these logging trucks on the country roads in my home town in Sussex, England

A friend of Kirk's from the Forest Service has his own portable mill, so a couple of days were spent helping him convert the trunk to lumber.

More legs, less arms....

Plenty of mulch for the trees we planted.

Lots of lumber to be used for the decking and interior trim and finish work inside the house.

Definitely worth the hard work

...and lots of yule logs. Now that's something to sing about.