Progress, cleanup and bumpers

 With brand new tracks Jason and I put on yesterday, I'm loaded up and heading to the property.

 My bright idea was to take this top layer of dirt and grass and load it into the back of the dump trailer. What I didn't take into account was that I was loading the very back of the trailer and not distributing the load throughout. What you see here are the skid marks where my truck went "ball hootin'" down the driveway once the load was great enough and unloaded weight from the rear wheels of my truck.

 In the road is where the truck stopped, but the trailer pushed the back end around until it jack knifed. LUCKILY, no one was driving by at this time, or worse, walking. And, both truck and trailer didn't end up in the golf course, cause that would have been expensive!

 The only damage to my truck was the bumper, no body work.

 But the trailer's box that holds the battery didn't fare as well.....

 The pile of brush on the other side of the well is everything I cut down last weekend.

 Getting cleaner! This building will hopefully be moved to another location since it is a good structure. Where it will be placed is another topic and we won't know until the hole for the basement is dug this week.

I left the last few trees for my grading contractor to remove since he has bigger equipment. I removed the two small structures that were on the right of the picture. I was able to salvage some of the good tin that was on it, but it had a layer of really cheap tin with scalloped decorations underneath that will go to the dump.

Grading should start this week!

Am I doing this right?

When you're running a chain saw for a few hours on end you start to think about things..... I couldn't remember if I was doing this right so I sent a text out to my family members and asked them. Amy said "Stupid is as stupid does", but my mom had the best response of "Redneck vasectomy"!

I'm glad to say I can still have kids, but that doesn't change our decision.

We closed! We officially own dirt!

This week we closed on our property. The closing was smooth and we got confirmation from the previous owner that the homestead dated back to Civil War times. Wow, a lot of history has happened here and we look forward to making a lot more!

 The barn needs quite a bit of work, but I'm excited to see it's transformation, and I think Bunky will love it!

 Upstairs of the barn. We will have the signature red sliding barn door attached to this in the future.

 Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. This is in the lower barn that will likely be disassembled and used to patch the barn and wood shop. The manger will be saved, of course. Maybe this is where Bunky will be fed!

 I applied for the septic permit before we closed, and got approval the day after. With briers towering above the roof line seen here, I needed to knock some down before they came out to inspect. The property owner allowed me to do this before closing, which was nice. Denis Griffith is his name and he once owned the Old Union golf course which will be our view from our back porch. He is a very nice guy and he was planning on building his home here! But, during the downturn he lost the golf course and took a loss on selling our property to us. We wish him well.

The day of closing! Haley was with her aunt, since closings are boring! But I went home and picked up Maddie, while Faith got pizza so we could have our 1st official meal on the property. There's no place like HOME!!!!❤❤❤

The beginning of our dreams on Garrett Circle

We sold our home just a month ago but have been looking for property with serious intent for about 4 months. We finally found our dream property at 744 Garrett Circle which is close to my folks and Faith's mom and the rest of our families! I will try and use this blog to document the transformation of the property and the construction of our home. Come along for the journey!

 On the left is the old barn that we will fix up for Bunky. On the right is what I have been calling the wood shop, although I'.m not sure what it was actually used for. This property has a lot of history and we want to keep as much of it as we can. Going back through the number of people who have owned this property, but never built new, has been surprising. A lot of people have seen the potential but just never saw it through. We feel blessed to be able to do so!

 To the left of the big spruce is where the home will reside. The old house site is on the right and will remain as-is until we can get to Phase II of construction.

 We hope that the chimney will stay up since a lot of it is made from mud mortar, not real mortar and I'm afraid may collapse. I am going to see if my stone mason can fill in some of the gaps to create better support.

 Where the future home site will be.

 An old smoke house, or that's what we have called it that will be moved from this location. It is in the way of the new home and we hope that it can be moved successfully.

 Panoramic view from our future back porch!

Entrance to our property.

And here is the drone video I created flying over the property: Garrett Circle Drone Fly Over