We have had some amazing weather on our hill already. From 2 early snowfalls to a scheduled burn 2 miles away that filled our hill and valley with smoke to stunning sunrises and sunsets. Of all that we have here, I hope that is one part that never gets old! A peek for you:

On a wet Saturday we were discussing our future in the natural resource energy providing field. We currently have a small but very capable log splitter, but we have found types of wood that it does not like to split. It’s also electric, so we can’t just take it off into the woods to cut and split out in the forest. We are trying to get ahead of ourselves for wood, by splitting greener wood and letting it season for next year, but that is difficult with that smaller splitter. So the debate was whether to just wait it out, to see how long it lasts, or add to our arsenal? We decided to add — and what a game changer! We now have 2 log splitters — one to handle the old drier stuff, stuff that we can burn right away, and a much bigger one to handle everything else! It’s not a professional version with a log lifter or conveyor system, but it will definitely help out. After the assembly, we split 2 large logs we had ready, and in 10 minutes had half of a rick of wood! This was an awesome upgrade.

Several projects have been completed this October, starting with the installation of our whole house standby generator! It was always part of the plan, but lead-times were way out so we are just thrilled to have it installed before winter. Since getting electric on this property, we’ve had many texts about outages, so this will definitely come in handy. We also got our mudroom set up the way we want it — a bench to sit on for putting on/taking off shoes, cubbies beneath it for storing shoes and boots, hooks for jackets and coats, and an upper shelf for whatever! Gloves, hats, purses! There is a closet next to it, so this area is mainly for what we need right now. Not permanent storage. Lastly, we finally planted the Japanese maple tree we had hoped to plant! We had one at our old house and liked it, but we ended up choosing a slightly larger variety. It’s called “Tamukeyama Laceleaf Maple” and it can get between 6-8ft tall, and just about that wide too. Should be perfect for that little corner of our yard! It’s so nice to have some projects crossed off our list.

What a shock, to wake up on October 18th, and discover about 1/2″ of snow on the ground! It didn’t stay long, was gone well before noon, but where it did stick, it was pretty. I was trying to figure out why the trees looked so different — we’ve been up here in the snow before, but something just was different. Then I realized it was because most of the trees still had leaves on them!

Today’s project was moving our mailbox. We originally installed it at the first driveway, where our camper was parked and where we could easily pick up our mail while waiting for the house to be completed. However, now that we are here there’s no need to have the mailbox anywhere but at our driveway! We elongated the drain pipe, covered the area with gravel, installed the new post, and even added a delivery box for packages. USPS usually just leaves packages by the box on the ground, so this will help keep those out of sight. Also, other deliverers can use it in inclement weather. Hopefully the mail carrier has no issues with this new arrangement!

At our house in Stilesville, we had such high heating costs the first winter we lived there that we looked into what we could do to help. We found something that was only slightly more expensive than a brand new furnace, and it would not only heat our house, it would heat our water as well. It was an outdoor wood burning furnace, which heats water that runs through the ground into the house and the indoor furnace blows air over the heated water filled coils and heats the house that way. Or something like that. We couldn’t have the same thing in Columbus, but we knew moving out to Brown Hill Road we definitely wanted that again. And today, our furnace was installed! It’s slightly different, but does essentially the same thing, and with all our wood we should have no issues at all. We even got a garage unit so that space can be kept at a certain temp all winter, or have a nice blast in case of a needed repair in the cold months. We are going to love this, I just know it!

We tackled and accomplished a ton of projects this weekend. From power-washing the outdoor furniture to adding leaf-guards to the gutters to finally unpacking the entire garage, all of that was done without me taking a single photo. However, today we also set the basin for the water feature we are going to put in, added the mulch around it and rocks inside it, and added mulch and a rock feature to the right of the porch. Then we spruced up the area around our “Neeley” log. Nice to have some of these mini projects done!

Nick took a video of the trail after he completed it and shared it with us here:

I also took an updated video of the driveway, going all the way to the house. I will upload a video of a walk-around inside and outside the house next weekend, but for now, here is the updated video:

Busy weekend here on Brown Hill Road! I don’t even have the biggest project recorded yet — Darren spent 3 days hauling and smoothing gravel for the driveway! After 9 months of construction traffic, it was time to make it better for our own vehicles (and those of our guests). Nice small gravel, smoothed out, and the ditches cleaned out too. I’ll get pics of that project later. What I do have to share is pictures of our living room — with our new loveseat! Finally, all the living room furniture is in place. I hope to finish it off with a rug someday. Also, we finally got our kitchen backsplash done. Whew, that was an undertaking, but 10 hours of work and it’s totally done! Nice! While we were busy with that, Nick and his friend started work on a trail they are clearing. They both have 4-wheelers now, and wanted a full loop trail that doesn’t use the driveway so they are busy working on that. What I love is that we’ll be able to use the trail for walking, and the trail goes into areas of our property that we don’t normally see so that’s awesome! Here are some pictures of the couch:

Here are some pics of the backsplash project:

And here are some pics of Nick’s trail:

After a couple of weeks in our new house, we are finally crossing some projects off our list that we’ve wanted to do. We put our name on our address rock, strung some lights around the railing on our deck and balcony, moved stuff around so we can finally park in the garage (now that the cement is fully cured), and smoothed out the dirt near our front door. That area was not seeded or strawed when the lawn was done because we’ll be adding a few things of our own there and we don’t want grass there. For now, it’s just smooth until we are ready to do the work there. There’s tons more to do here, though!