Our builder told us that the crew would be out on the site doing prep work and digging stumps, so we headed out to Brown Hill Road after work to see how it looked. Imagine our surprise when we found this! So exciting!!! Our house build has begun!
Septic!
Finally, it was dry enough for the septic to go in! The permit was issued a week ago, and they showed up on Brown Hill Road on Friday to get started. Trees had to come out for the field and the perimeter drain, too many for my taste but what can you do? We arrived on Saturday thinking we’d start burning the debris, but they were there again putting in overtime to get the project done. The inspector even arrived and approved the work! Monday will be covering the whole thing with dirt and seeding and strawing everything. The very tall pole in the center was not something I expected to find, but I already have ideas to hide it (totem pole???).
Fall color plus stakes!
There’s not been much to do out on Brown Hill Road, but we did make it out to capture some lovely fall color last weekend:
Today we were out there by 8:30 am, to accompany the builder and a couple of surveyors to stake out our house! The first stake went in, and everything is measured off that. They laid out the entire house and garage, and have offset stakes at every corner. I was totally impressed with how close we were with our own amateur measuring and running of marking tape! A few inches off in a couple of places, but really very close!
My Vacation Week
I had my own solo week of vacation, but without an excavator at my fingertips, I did not get as much done on Brown Hill Road as Darren did during his! That’s OK — I did get plenty done! Gathered roots and sticks and overhanging limbs, mowed everything we have to mow, cleared our side yard and mowed that too. Darren even joined me on Saturday and we hauled 4 loads of gravel with dust to fill in the large rocks on our driveway. We also bought a new chainsaw — after 20 years, the old one gave up the ghost but with 20 acres of trees and a future of heating our house and barn with wood, we simply must have one! Last weekend we staked out where we think the house will be, so you’ll be able to see that too.
New culverts working!
We stopped by our Brown Hill Road property last night after 3 days of rain to see how the new culverts were doing. I’m pretty sure all the grass seed was washed away, but the water was flowing exactly as we intended! There are a couple of areas that will need to be filled in where the dirt over the pipe settled, but that’s easy in comparison to the mess we had last June. It’s so exciting to see hard work paying off!
Looking down over the culvert entrance 
Another week’s rental
We rented a mini excavator for another week, as you saw on the last post where we helped our son with his back yard. The excavator did a heck of a job there, and we put it to some real work the whole next week! Here is a run down of what we accomplished (mostly Darren, who took the week off work):
House site clearing: we took down a very very tall tree that was leaning the wrong way. We used our son’s Jeep and winch to ensure it fell correctly, and it came down quickly and right where we wanted it. I hated to lose the tree, but we’re pretty sure it was right where the walkout basement will be so it had to go. Besides, the huge dead tree we took down a couple of months ago had landed on it and did a lot of damage so it might have died anyway. We cleared other trees, burned all the limbs and debris, and hauled the logs to the log pile for later use. Darren also pulled up some saplings and dead trees standing in what will be our side yard when the house is built. More on that in future post.
Water line installation was next. The electric line will be going in soon, and we had considered hiring the same company that is installing that line to do the water line, but Darren opted to attempt it himself instead. It has to be 36″ deep minimum, and after he dug the trench and pulled the line into the trench and down the hill, the line had to be covered by hand so no huge rocks landed on top of it and cracked it. That job mostly fell to me and was no easy task! Then the excavator was used to push the rest of the dirt on top of that. Whew! But it’s covered, and ready to be connected. We won’t need to connect right away to the main water line, but it’s ready for whenever that needs to be done.
The 3rd project tackled was clearing a spot to build a pole barn. We are planning to build a 30×40 (or larger) barn so we needed a spot large enough and flat enough for that. Luckily, at the very top of the hill leading to the house site, if you turn left instead of right, there’s a spot that’s perfect! Darren cleared all the trees, including a double stumped oak that had the biggest root ball we’d encountered so far! We didn’t even attempt to burn that stump — it got tossed into our furthest ravine to rot away 🙂
The last major project of the week was to remove and replace the culvert at the bottom of the hill, near the camper. Our son’s graduation party was nearly cancelled due to our yard being a river from a recent series of storms and a heck of a lot of rain, and we realized that our tiny 6″ pipes just could not keep up with the amount of water that comes off the hill in the spring and in rainy seasons. Darren removed all the old pipe, managed to find and remove a 3rd steel culvert we hadn’t found the first time we tackled this job, and then he dug a larger deeper trench for 15″ culvert pipes. We put in 60 feet of pipe this time, going from further in the valley all the way to the creek. He also removed all the rocks in the creekbed, smoothed all the edges so it’ll be easier to maintain, then replaced the rocks. We seeded and tossed out straw as well so the grass can get started again before winter.
Other things done included stump removal, removing the decaying crab-apple log from in front of the camper, keeping the fire hot and burning all week (all stumps and old logs are officially gone!), and creating a new path from the barn site to the north west corner of the property. We had a path going from the barn site to the runway, so we used that and jutted off to the north. I hope we’ll have lots of paths and trails when we move out there!
Neeley’s on the road again
Well, we didn’t go too far, but did travel about 6 blocks from our house to help our son totally revamp his yard. He bought this house in June of this year, and spent a lot of time inside painting and making it “his”. However, there were 2 huge stumps left in the yard from trees removed a long time ago and he really wanted those removed. There also was a dip in the yard where a pool once sat that he wanted filled. The pergola he had set up with chairs really needed a better arrangement, and lastly, he wanted a larger parking area. So while we had an excavator rented, we took it over and got to work. He had everything ready and they made quick work of the stumps. I jumped in raking while they worked on making a gravel bed for the pergola, and then they worked on the parking area. The dip in the yard got fill in with the excess dirt from digging other areas out, and in the end he now has a level yard, no stumps, a lovely seating area, a large parking area, and once grass grows again, something to be very proud of! I must admit, it turned out very nice!
House site clearing and more
Any day we spend on the property is pretty much the same any more — mowing, house site cleaning, burning. I’ve not kept up on posting here because the changes are harder to see. However, we have made some strides in clearing the house site so I thought I’d post some pics from this past weekend. We staked out the house a few weeks ago, and then marked what trees were inside a 30-40 foot perimeter and then marked the ones that must go. That’s been the focus — clearing the trees that must go. We usually burn off the upper smaller limbs and leaves, and stack up the stuff worth keeping for our future wood burning furnace. As you can see below, my favorite tree, that funky sassafras, is still standing, but it is inside the garage so it will have to go. It’s also mostly dead so it would have to go eventually anyway!
Some future projects include installing electric and water lines up the hill from the road to the house site, and the septic area is marked well and will hopefully go in this year. Along the path that the electric lines will be installed is another ground hornet’s nest that we’ll have to remove, but we have to find it first — Darren was stung several times while walking that with the Duke excavator guy, but they pretty much booked it up the hill after the hornets appeared so we don’t know exactly where they are.
Working in Mansfield
I took a break from Brown Hill Road this week and headed to my parents’ house in Mansfield, Ohio, to help with some much needed projects. The pandemic put a lot of our visits on hold over the past year and a half or more, so the normal help they have gotten had dwindled to almost nothing! A couple of my sisters had been here before me this summer and did a few things on the list, so this was just added help. We took out about 50 hedge bushes, first with just my pole saw, and then finally Dad brought out the chain saw and made much quicker work of that! Then Mom and I made 5 trips to the compost yard to drop off all the stuff we cut down. I also fixed the steps that lead from the house lot into the garden lot so my Mom hopefully won’t trip down those steps.
Ditch clean up and 53s
After weeks of digging the driveway, hauling away dirt, digging up stumps, hauling and spreading gravel, we took a much needed break. Then it was time to do some major clean up work! We cleared away the remaining stumps and limbs left behind, and then I started working on the ditches. Exposed roots needed to be trimmed back, and the ditches cleared of dirt and rocks that had fallen in. Lots of work, but it looks so much cleaner now! Darren also rented a skid steer over the weekend and hauled in 53s — smaller gravel with dust mixed in. Those settle into the larger gravel and make for much smoother driving experience.
The Neeley's on Brown Hill Road 