Breaking ground!

Yahoo! We've begun digging at the lot! After our final permit came through late last week, we were able to get the silt fence up and the excavation crew out and working this week. We're grateful that school is out because Sean has been able to get out to the lot super early to coordinate workers and work at cleaning up the site.

Stump removal began Monday. It was mesmerizing to watch the grace with which Al the excavator dug out, shook off, and piled enormous tree stumps.
Sean and Mickey breaking for lunch and cold drinks Monday:

On Tuesday Sean and Mickey started the day early. A lame doe was sighted first thing. Gotta remember to keep the camera out at all times.

The excitement of having the backhoe working made Sean feel like a kid. Except his sandbox was over an acre on Honey Creek. We made enormous timber-root-log-stone-sand piles bucket-full at a time with a dinosaur Case backhoe.

Early morning, Al got to work burying stumps and clearing debris. Al operates the backhoe. He's got the whole thing gamed. From big buckets and throws to little wisps of sand, Al owns that thing.

By the afternoon, Ken Coleman, the land surveyor, had staked each turn and jog in the footprint of the house. Al got started digging the basement, and Mickey watched everything go down like a hawk.

We stopped by the lot after dinner and were excited to see exactly where our house will be. We're standing in the basement in the center of the house. The soil also looks great, and we can't wait to have a thriving garden this time next year.
Sean and Peter show off the giant timbers we'll have milled into porch posts, newel posts, and exterior decking. We're delighted to put these awesome oak and cherry logs to good use.
Aimee and Peter checked out the progress. We gave it our seal of approval.
Peter insisted on trying out the bulldozer. Sean was happy to supervise.
Sean and Peter overlooking the newly dug basement. Honey Creek is in the distance, and the area behind the silt fence will be left largely as it looks now.
Here is the old bucket that hauled many a wood chip; the poor, squished wheelbarrow looks like this because on two separate occasions Sean dropped a tree on it. Any suggestions for what to do with it now?

Slow march towards ground breaking

Things keep moving forward in our slow march towards ground breaking. The silt fence is being installed Monday, and we have the excavator scheduled to break ground late next week. We're still waiting on a final driveway permit, so until that comes through Sean will continue to delve into and cut back the poison ivy infested shoulder near the entrance to the private drive.

While Sean was working at the lot burning some brush piles, Peter and I came out for a visit. It was a fantastic, sunny day, so we snapped some fun pictures of Peter showing off his newly debuted ability to sit on his own. I also got some nice shots of the rushing creek while we were there. It's easy to take photos of both; they're beautiful things to watch.

The first photo is the view of the lot from the driveway we've made off the private drive. The smoke on the left is coming from the brush piles Sean had going all day. The clump of tall trees in the center is an island that will be in the middle of the circle driveway.

Guesswork

Clearing our site has taken a lot of guesswork.

Last Thursday, our surveyor staked out the basement for our house. This stake may not look like much, but it represents months of planning and hard-work.

I was excited to see where the stakes would be placed and I was nervous as we've spent months carefully felling trees to make way for the house, the driveway, and the construction equipment.

After 9 months of work, the survey showed that we'd done a pretty good job of clearing the site. All the trees were down. I was still alive.

The surveyor quickly found out that I'd been a little too careful: two massive oaks were in the way of the site. One was sitting squarely in the space reserved for our future office. The second, a massive double-oak, was too close to the future porch.

Looks like 40 oaks is about to be 38.

Prepping the lot

Sean and his chainsaw wielding buddies have been hard at work clearing a space on our 1.2 acre lot for the house and driveway. They have spent months cutting and splitting trees, and our long awaited permits have finally come through to allow us to begin construction.

The surveyor was working yesterday to stake out the footprint of the house, so we hope to break ground next week!

So you can see how much work there was to do, here are some photos of the lot in the spring of 2010 before work began; Honey Creek was much lower than it is this year:

This is one of the giant oak trees that toppled over in June 2010 during a series of rough storms:I would be remiss to not include a picture of Sean hard at work. These picture speak volumes to Sean's newfound passion for lumbering as well the tremendous amount of help he's gotten from some good buddies.