Chapter 148...Cutting Wood And A Little Bit Of This And That

Good morning!!!  It's time for Mike and I to clean up our back hill and at the same time get wood for next winter.  I love when one job equals two:)  We will be able to get wood from our back hill for a very long time without cutting a single tree down.


First a few pictures of the Mike and Lisa world.

Here are the baby calves...so cute:)

We also got a call from our camping/Ohio friends.  They will be coming for lunch so Mike and I want to get cleaned up for them:)  We start at the top of the drive and work our way down.  Mike uses the blower while I use a flat shovel to clean up our driveway.

Moving right along.  It is much easier to clean since the cows can't go on it.

Fast forward a couple of days:) and Mike digs a hole in our front yard.  Since we put the solar panels in the back and close to where my old clothesline was we had to move the clothesline:

We saved the old concrete block that used to hold my clothesline in place.  We will try to reuse it.  Mike stomps it into the hole:

And tamps it down on the edges with our trusty metal bar. 

Mike gets the clothes line in.  It will be so much nicer having it closer to the house:)

Now it's time for the fun stuff.  We didn't cut enough wood last year so we want to get a good start for next year.  We have a ton of wood all over the property that is already down.  It just needs to be cut and hauled to our racks.  Sometimes that is the hard part.  Luckily the hill behind our house is pretty easy to get to.


Our goal today is to cut one big tree.  Mike starts at the top of it:

Moving up the tree towards the trunk:

While Mike uses the chainsaw to cut I start throwing/rolling the logs down the hill.  The bigger ones make it almost to the back fence while the smaller ones take a few throws before they get to the bottom.  It's a mess:

I am getting the logs closer to the back yard.  On a side note....Mike and I are easily entertained, lol.  We will watch some of the bigger logs roll to see where they will end up.  Usually right before the bottom the logs will turn away from my garden..but not always...Ugh!!

Mike making his way to the trunk.  This is a big tree:

Almost all cleaned up for the day.  Oops looks like one log hit my garden:

Thankfully I didn't have plants growing in that section yet:)

The next day we get ready to tackle a new tree.  Before we start I put boards behind my garden to protect it from flying logs.

The logs from yesterday:

Mike starting on a larger tree which is up higher than the last tree:

There I am throwing logs down the hill:

Mike keeps cutting:

We are doing good.  I have to use the pry bar to help lift the tree so Mike can cut the logs.  We move up the tree together to get the logs cut.  Once a few get cut we take a break from that and start throwing the logs down the hill:

This time we were higher up and the logs were bigger so they rolled much faster which was not a good thing for my garden.  Mike finishing with the cutting:

My poor garden.  Looks like the boards didn't help:

We did get quite a bit of wood though so that is good:)

The boards didn't work:

We are done on the back hill.  Now it's time to clean up and Niki can help:

Mike and I get the log splitter out and set it up.  I will split the logs while Mike hauls the split logs down to the wood rack in front of the house.  His first trip down he lost the load of logs.  Guess he will have to strap them on tighter:)

Mike loading the logs onto our rack:

We got the front rack full and have no place to put the rest of the logs.  Time to build a new rack.  We are using two 4x4 posts on the ground to hold the logs and we will use a 4x4 post on each end standing up to keep the logs on the rack.  Mike is making sure our vertical post is level:

Me using the post hole diggers for the second post:

Mike doing the finishing touches while Niki watches:)

The princess needs some shade:

We thought it would be easier to use the trailer for all the newly split logs.  It's pretty full:

Yay...the wood is split and the trailer is empty:

We filled the trailer again and added to the rack.  It is almost full.  Not bad for a couple of days work:)

This brings up almost us to date on what we have gotten done at the house.  Mike and I have been doing what we can this year but it doesn't seem like we are getting much done.  It's still all good as long as we keep moving forward and accomplishing things.

I hope you enjoyed this story and I will write again soon.

Chapter 143...Pouring The Concrete Slab For The Store And Clean Up

Today is the day.  We will have the concrete slab poured and then if the weather holds Mike and I can start construction:)

The concrete company and our workers are ready to go:

They will need 12 1/2 yards of concrete so the truck will have to refill and come back.  This is the first truck and the concrete crew smooths out the first section:

While they are doing that, Mike and I brought the chainsaw to do some clean up work.  We have a big tree trunk down on the back hill.  Mike gets in the Jeep and backs it up as close as he can.  I take the chain and wrap it around the log so Mike can pull it off the hill:

Mike starts cutting and I start loading.  Now we have a nice start for our wood pile for next year:)

Back to our concrete crew.  The second truck of concrete is here:

Using the chute to pour the concrete onto the slab:

All the concrete is poured and our contractor does the finishing touches for a smooth slab.  He uses a troweling machine to smooth it out.  Looks good:

Now we have to let it cure before we can do any building.  We also need a dose of good and dry weather.  Mike and I will order the lumber and start building as soon as we have 3-5 good days in a row.


We do get a chance to go back to the lot to clean the land.

First we have to buy a ride on mower since we sold our last one.  I use a push mower at the house but that would take too long here.  So down to Lowe's we go and we pick up a Troy-Bilt Pony mower which has the exact same engine and size cut as the John Deere but it is $500.00 less:)  Troy Bilt Pony

The only problem we have is Lowe's forgot to give us a manual and a key....grr!!!  Lowe's is too far for us to make a trip back so Mike stuck a screwdriver in the key hole so I could start it.  Hey...it worked for now.

Getting the equipment to the property:

Mike unloads the mower onto the grass for me:

And off I go.  While I mow and blow all of the debris on the hill by the road, Mike works with the tractor.  We have a lot of clean up after the grading was done.  Mike wants to make sure we have a nice small ditch from the back of the building to the road at the other end of our property.  This way any water that comes down the back hill will get caught in the ditch and carried away from the building.  It's a mess and it takes Mike a long time to get it somewhat cleaned up.

The lawn is cut:

For the next week we have to work at home but now we are back and it's time to rake and seed the property where Mike has cut it open.  I start out by weed eating the front 400 feet of the property while  Mike once again works on the tractor:

And he grades it out:

I get the grass seed, the shovel and the rake from the car.  I start at the far side by the road.  I need to dig out the one small hill so the water can flow into the lower section of the ditch by the road.  Unfortunately it is too hard and I need Mike to break up the dirt for me:

Now I can get some work done:)  I rake out the ditch line that Mike made, shovel up all the rocks and throw seed down.  It is a slow process.  I get about 100 feet done and I have to stop.  Mike is working on a muddy area and there is nothing I can do there so I do the same job behind the building.


My sections are cleaned up, raked and seeded.  The front of the ditch by the road:

And behind the building:

That is what we are up to on that lot.  Now we need a big break in the weather to start construction.  Mike and I can't wait.  It will be hard on us to build but this is something we both really enjoy doing.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I will write again soon:)

Chapter 125...Turkeys, Deer, Snow and Mountains

Off Grid...Chapter 125 It has been a wonderful and very mild winter. Mike and I have been super busy in March so I better finish up with February February was mostly about cutting wood and cleaning up. Fortunately we didn't need all of the wood we cut. Before I start that let me tell you about the new RV refrigerator in case anyone else runs into this problem. We had trouble getting the freezer to get cold enough and the refrigerator was too cold and freezing things like celery and lettuce. We called our supplier and they sent us a new thermistor. Mike installed it and it fixed the problem. It now runs fine and I can switch back and forth from propane to electric with one button We should have done this in the first place OK...onto some pictures. We had a trailer full of wood from the buckeye tree to bring down to the house. Mike is cutting it up into smaller chunks to fit our wood stove. Stacking it up in front of the house. We will have to come up with a better place for our wood for next winter. Our turkeys are back....I am so glad they made it through the winter alive And another trip down to the pond to clean top the old buckeye mess. Mike drags out vines that we stored in the barn. We have to take these to the burn pile. Once the trailer is loaded we take them to the burn pile and I start to unload the vines. Yay..the vines are done. Now it's time to clean up the wood and shavings around the buckeye site. Mike can't stand looking at that "bright white" stump so he wants to cover it. He shovels up some mud and throws it on top of the stump. And then he smears the mud around. Yup...that should work Niki loves...and I mean loves the wood stove. Unfortunately she thinks she can lean against it so we had to come up with a way to protect her. Here she is enjoying the heat but blocked off from the danger of leaning against it. 2-15-12 Wow it is a beautiful day. Mike, Niki and I go out back behind the house to cut some more wood. We have so much down on the back hill and it's pretty easy to get to Mike cutting up some wood. The hill I have to throw it down. Sometimes it takes me 3 throws to get it to the bottom of the backyard As you can see Niki must be tired that day. She did not follow us "up" the hill. She decided to wait for us in the yard. I think she may be the smart one, lol. After we get the wood thrown down the back hill, it's time to load it into the tractor bucket to bering it to the house. Mike loading up while Niki supervises. And the next two days after such beautiful weather we got snow The second day. I may not like it but it sure is pretty. After it all melted we got back to our beautiful weather and more wood cutting We went back to the section behind the barn where a big tree fell a couple of years ago...or was it last year Anyway, this huge tree fell on top of briar bushes...not fun to cut and clean up. Mike worked on cutting while I had to throw the wood into a gully. Then I had to get into the gully and throw the wood back "up" to where the trailer was. That day was one heck of a workout Now I will leave you with the deer that we saw right outside the front door. That's all for now. I really had only wood cutting pictures for the whole month and it is just not that exciting, lol. I hope you enjoyed the story. Right now Mike and I are building a big shed with mega shelves. I will write about that in a couple of weeks. Lisa