Two weeks of heavy equipment

Hi All,
After two full weeks of heavy equipment working around here there has been a lot accomplished. The entire area where the house and garage will go has been cleared and the dirt pad where the house will go is in place.

Access from the house to the dam and a small bit of the driveway has been cleared making it possible to repair the lake's dam and also connect the small lake with the bigger lake.

Susan and I have continued to work on getting the wood floors out of the old house. A much bigger and more difficult task than we thought.

Down to wood floors

Wood floor removed, now down to floor joists

DIY tip #2 - For a pier and beam foundation some cement blocks and car jacks can be used to hold up a wall that otherwise would fall down due to dry rot or termites. This allows for occasional adjustments.

Susan is cutting out the floor joists so we can reuse them someplace. They are real 2 x 8 boards. Really 2 inches thick and 8 inches wide.

Friday morning the electric company disconnected the service from the house and took their meter. About 10 minutes later David was on his track hoe and going to work.

Getting the last things out of the house

David is in the track hoe, just eating up the house. Ricky is driving the dump truck over to a 20 feet deep hole dug for the house's last resting place. Jeff is on the ground salvaging anything salvageable and using the bulldozer to push the debris into the hole.

By the end of the day, there is no more house

Friday night our neighbors joined us for the bonfire. 

By this morning (Saturday) about all that is left is a smoldering pit.

That's it for now. Take care.
Brian

Progress Report After Four Days

Hi All,
Four days in and there has been a lot of work done. Behind the house that will be demolished there is a three room structure we affectionately call the crack house. A lot of work was done around the crack house to clean up all the trash and brush.

You have seen pictures of the lake but there is actually a small pond much closer to the existing house- currently a mosquito hatchery. The water from the spring runs into the pond and then overflows to a creek that runs to the lake at the back of the property. Both dams,( the one for the pond and the one for the lake) need to be repaired. Yesterday (Wednesday) and a little bit of today David and his crew fixed the pond dam.

Here's pretty much how the pond and dam looked when they started

 Here's David in his track hoe repairing the dam....

Here's the new dam, just waiting for a good rain or the spring to slowly fill the pond

Here's Jeff on the bulldozer clearing what was once a trail back to the home site

I left out that besides getting all the trash and brush cleared up the first couple of days they made a pad for the pole barn that will be going in a few weeks from now. By the end of the day today they had started clearing the area where the house and garage will go. It is amazing how much three guys on heavy equipment can get done in a day. Susan and I are still working on getting the wood floors out of the old house or otherwise we'd just sit and watch them all day.

That's it for now. Take care.
Brian

Getting to work

Hi All,
Once we were back from Georgia and South Carolina we got to work on figuring out what we are going to do about housing. We had the water in the old house tested and feel certain now that there are lead pipes in the house. That along with all the other work that needed to be done was the death knell for the house. I know many of you wanted us to renovate the house based on the pictures but everyone that has seen it or walked through it said we should tear it down. Today.

A bit of a leaky roof

There used to be a wall there

A tip for you DIY'ers, when the wall doesn't meet the floor take a bed sheet, roll it up and stuff it in the crack

Under the carpet, the pad and this plywood, we found tar paper. Under the tar paper we found wood floors! 

 We're working on getting all the wood flooring out now. Getting to the wood floors is the hard part; getting it out is easy with the right tools. The flooring will need some sanding and staining but our plan is for it to go in the new house.

So this...

Now has a date with these

Speaking of the new house, we've decided on where to put it. We thought we had it a couple of weeks ago but we moved it based on exposure to the afternoon sun.

This is where the new house is going to go

Perhaps this will give you a better idea. The house will be over there looking through those trees at the lake.

Our almost-family friends are busy at work moving dirt, clearing pads, fixing dams, and burying mountains of trash. It's amazing what they've been able to do in two days and they've only just started!

That's it for now. I'll post more pictures soon to show David's progress.

Brian

Trip to Atlanta and South Carolina

Hi All,
Last weekend Susan and her girlfriends had a "girls weekend" planned. Hurricane Irma adjusted their plans a bit. They were going to spend the weekend at a house in Folly Beach, unfortunately that house was under water. Just as we were leaving Texas the plan changed.  They decided to help one of the friends clean up a bunch of downed limbs from Irma on their property in SC. I was going to be loading stuff from Susan's barn in Atlanta to bring back to Texas while the girls had their weekend. With the change of plans I got invited instead!

The property is in what is known as ACE Basin in South Carolina. ACE Basin is the basin of the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers, one of the largest undeveloped estuaries along the Atlantic Coast of the United States according to Wikipedia. This particular property is special because parts of the movie Forrest Gump were filmed there. In fact the pecan grove in front of Forrest's house is where we spent the weekend picking up and burning downed limbs.

Run Forrest, Run!

The "Jenny Tree"

We still had a bunch of stuff we wanted to bring back from Atlanta so we spent Sunday evening and Monday morning loading up the trailer with "stuff". Thanks to Mark for helping us get the wood stove loaded.

Let me tell you a story about a man named Jed...

That's it for now. Take care.
Brian

Chapter 3 - 40 acres and no mule

Hi All,
I had several people ask that we continue with the blog and report on what we're doing with the land. So here's Chapter 3, 40 acres (actually 39.93) and no mule (but we did get a Polaris Ranger).

The 40 acres. Here's an aerial photo of our property, outlined in red.

It kinda looks like a gun pointing down. In the barrel (lower left corner) is where the current house is located. The open pasture to the left is Texas A&M AgriLife Research land. The dark triangle looking thing towards the top of our property is a lake / pond.

No mule, but a Polaris Ranger. We bought this while we were in Cody, Wyoming and used uship to get it back to Texas.

In my last post I mentioned we were trying to figure out whether to renovate the house built in 1930 or bulldoze it down. We still haven't decided what to do. One day we want to keep it, the next we want to burn it to the ground. I have a few pictures but they are all of the outside. The inside is so disgusting we wouldn't want anyone to see it. So far we've pulled most of the carpet out so at least you can walk in without losing your lunch.

Looks pretty rough

Well, it could be cute

Maybe too much work

If we just got the tree limb off the roof...

Who knows what we'll decide to do with it. Our purchase decision was all about the land, the house wasn't even a consideration.

Just how thick are the woods?

The word "impenetrable" comes to mind

There are a few places you can get a peek at the lake

Have you ever heard of a forestry mulcher? What a cool machine! We hired a company to mulch around the property line so we could at least know where the property lines are. These machines literally eat trees. A thirty foot tree becomes mulch in a minute or two. They are amazing to watch. Because the woods are so thick I couldn't get in front of them to show them eating an entire tree but here's a few seconds of one doing some "clean up".

And here's what they leave in their wake.

Once again, Duncan has to get in the picture.

That's it for now. Take care.

Brian

The end. For now.

Hi All,
All good things must come to an end and so it is with our latest adventure. Boy have we had fun and many amazing experiences!

After the eclipse there was really only one more significant stop, to see my cousin Christy and her husband Greg in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln is where all 4 of my grandparents lived, my parents met, and where my brother and I were born.

In Lincoln we drove by both my grandparent's houses and had brunch with Christy and Greg. That was Friday.

There weren't this many stops between Dillon and Gun Barrel City but to get the route correct I had to add in a bunch of places. We overnighted in Rock Springs, Wyoming, Sterling, Colorado, Lincoln, Nebraska and Copan Lake State Recreation Area in Oklahoma

My cousin Christy and I

After brunch we drove through Kansas and stayed our last night on the road in Copan Lake State Recreation Area in Oklahoma. For our last night we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset. What a great way to end our trip.

Saturday morning we got up and drove the last leg to Gun Barrel City. We left Gun Barrel City on Sunday, May 14. We returned on Saturday, August 26. In fifteen weeks we traveled 16,725 miles, the truck's engine ran 330 hours and 58 minutes. One thing we wished we had kept count of, but didn't, was how many times we said "wow". We said it a lot. It was a great trip.

Just before we left in May we bought 40 acres of land (85% wooded) in East Texas. On the land is a house built in 1930. It either needs a) a lot of work or b) to be bulldozed down. Either way, this is our next adventure and it started today. I don't see there being sufficient interest to justify a blog so this is probably the last entry. I hope all who have followed along on the boat and / or the land travel have enjoyed it.

Take care and good night.
Brian and Susan

More Eclipse Pictures

Here are some more pictures from the eclipse on Monday, August 21.  One of our neatest experiences ever!  Thanks to Kent and Heather for sharing.

The forecast for viewing

Kent, Heather and Heather's dad David

Ready and waiting for the big event

The sun through a filter

Those are some stylin' glasses

Some pin holes in the bottom of a paper cup and you can see the progression

I'm not sure how Kent did this, but it's cool!

100%

A portion of the 360 degree sunset

The sun making its reappearance

Take care.
Brian