New Wood Crib and More Logging

We are continuing to clear out the forest area where the new leach field will go.  Some time ago we decided to save the large straight trunks of the trees for future timber milling.  Meanwhile we need a space to store them.  A large part of the motivation for making the flat area that we completed on 25 June was to have room enough for at least two 10 foot by 12 foot wood cribs to store the logs.  We built the first one today and proceeded immediately to load it up with logs starting with the ones we had loaded into the trailer on 26 July.  We will have a lot more logs to store before we are done.

This is the first of the new wood cribs.
It is simple but effective at keeping the logs in a neat stack off the wet ground.

The first of the logs to go on the new crib are the ones that we dumped out of the trailer we loaded a few days ago.

The first log is maneuvered into place with the excavator acting as a crane. 

The last log for the first layer.  We have room for plenty more.

That's all for today.

Surveying for Footers

Now that we have the basic cut completed, the next step is to lay out the position of the footers.  Kathryn came and helped Nick and I set the stakes and lines to locate exactly where our first 50 by 20 foot building will be located.

Looking from the southeast corner of the site.
Note the layout stakes and some of our equipment in the background.

Left to right: John, Kathryn, Nick

R&R Berryville Steam Show

We spent the day at the Berryville Steam Show.  The show has been going every year for the past 45.  We have been going for the past 25 years or so.  We are planning to obtain some sort of antique machine to exhibit there once we get our facility up and running.

1990 Toyota Pickup - Reanimation

We have a bit of a vehicle problem at the moment.  Nick's 1999 Toyota Rav4 blew a transmission seal recently and is out of commission until we decide how we will fit it.  Meanwhile we are one vehicle short.  We have this 1990 Toyota Pickup which has been in storage for the past 6 years.  We decided it might be a little cheaper and faster to get the pickup working than the Rav4.  The pickup only needs new front brakes, new rear brakes, a tailpipe, cat, windshield, carburetor, gas tank, battery, radiator, and tires.  Other  than that it is good as new.  Nick hopes to have it back on the road by the end of August working in his spare time.

For two years the old Toyota has waited patiently in the woods.
Today is the day it will move again - although not under its own power.

Gravity is sufficient to get it onto the road.

We used the tractor to pull it to a level spot where it can be worked on.

Logging

Taking a break from activities directly related to erecting buildings, we are engaged of late in clearing an area of forest where our septic system will be installed.  We have developed a system for processing trees which is reasonably efficient as well as producing useful materials.  After we fell the trees we first remove all the small branches and brush.  Anything less than about two inches in diameter or so we put through our chipper to make nice wood chips which is useful for paths and landscaping.  Branches in the 2 to 6 inch range we cut into sections for firewood.  Finally the large trunks are cut into 12 foot lengths which we are currently storing for future processing into timber.  We use all our machinery to accomplish this but there is still a considerable amount of manual labor involved.

A 12 foot length of trunk is dragged out of the forest with a chain and the tractor.

The logs are loaded onto our "Big Red" dump trailer for transport to a storage area.  We use the excavator to lift these; the larger logs can weigh 800 pounds.

We have about 2 tons of log on the trailer and it is ready to roll.

Crème Brûlée Mushrooms

It has been a somewhat different year for the forest mushrooms.  We had very little snow last winter and the spring was relatively dry.  The summer, however, has been unusually wet so the mushrooms came in later and in different proportions.  In particular, we are having a boom in this type of mushroom which I have been calling the "Crème Brûlée Mushroom" since, at least to me, it resembles the French dessert.  I do not know what it is really called and I do not know if it is edible.  Actually, I don't care if it is edible because when it gets a few days old it rots rapidly and stinks like dead rodents.

Another New Chain Saw

Now that we have completed the excavation for the first building we are taking some time to deal with other areas of the site.  For the next few weeks we will concentrate on clearing an area of land to the northwest of the buildings where the leach field for the septic system will go.  We are having a contractor put in the septic system but we wanted to harvest the trees from the area beforehand.  To facilitate this effort we purchased a second Stihl chainsaw.  We bought a smaller, lighter companion to the first saw.  The big saw is great for the felling of the trees and cutting the large trunks, but it gets very heavy after a couple of hours and is more than is needed to cut up the smaller branches once the tree is down.

Big and little - older and newer.  We get a lot of good use out of these chainsaws.

The Cut is Completed

Exactly 10 months to the day since we began we have completed the cut for the first building.  We still have to dig down for the building footers but the bulk overburden is removed, including the rock we had to break through with a jackhammer.

Sighting along the back edge of the cut.
In the background can be seen the KX-91 excavator that did most of the digging.

Nick and I standing in the cut.  Directly behind us can be seen the rock layer which had to be extracted with demolition tools.

Lightning Stikes a Tree

There was a huge thunderstorm in the first week of July which knocked out power over a wide area of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland.  The power outage did not affect us too much since we do not have utility service on the land but the storm did blow down a very large tree near our build site.  The downed tree was of no particular concern either since it was diseased and we were going to extract it anyway.  We thought that this tree was the extent of our storm damage until today when I was hiking into the southeast corner of our property in an area where I do not often go.  Here I found a tree that clearly was the victim of a recent lightning strike.  The strike produced what was essentially a high pressure steam explosion in the tree.  The bark was blown off nearly half the diameter of the trunk and the wood underneath had splintered and some was thrown may meters from the tree.  I would have loved to see it happen - from a safe distance. 

A once healthy oak is splintered by the effects of lightning.

Looking up the tree the extent of the damage is evident.

Shards of wood littered the forest floor.

Pieces of the struck tree were festooned on neighboring trees.