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muddstopper

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Looks like things are going to get hectic around here for a while. Resized_20190710_175638(1).jpeg Grading contractor started my new driveway this evening.. Resized_20190710_175644.jpeg
Scrounging my own wood.
Not much time to scrounge or process. Most of the good stuff will go to the mill, sadly most of the good firewood will be burnt just to get rid of it. I will offically be homeless in about 2 weeks when we close on the house. I will be spending my time trying to get the new home built. I will be bringing my already processed firewood from my old home. I have about 7 or 8 full cord processed and dry. It will endup in a big pile in the weather until I can find time to build a firewood shed and stack in it.

More pics to come as things progress.
 
Looking forward to watching.

Wrapping up my cabin build this week. Took me 9 years to complete it. No more building projects for me for a while!
Just 9 years???? We have been planning this house for 40 years. We have moved all around this area over the years. Kids born, need bigger place, kids marry time to downsize. My last house when all the kids where still in school, was 5 bedrooms and three baths. Current house 3 bedrooms with 1 1/2 baths that we added on to to make my wife a office and turn the half bath into a full. Now its me and the wife and dont need the extra bedroom Last house I hope to build.

Anyways, a event filled day. Went looking at houses for sale. Found one but its a little more than I want to pay. Realitors is going to try and negotiate for us to see if we can get the price down. Nice 900sqft 2 bedroom one bath house. Secluded and not far from where we will be building. Drove by the new road on the way back to realitors office and I made the realitor stop and let me out. Things didnt look right and it wasnt. I shut the operator down and told him he wasnt doing what I wanted. Well he called his boss and we had a come to Jesus moment. Now to be honest, the way they where doing things is what is usually required for most of the development roads they usually build. Clear everything and anything that might be in the way. I am sure it would have looked good doing things their way, but it wasnt what I wanted. I am putting in a driveway for a single home. I dont need or want a 20ft wide road bed. I had to tell them again, my way or the highway and they could load up now if they didnt like it. The problem was what the operator was doing with the brush. He was pushing it way down below the road into the woods. His claims was he had to move it in order to be able to work. Well I could certainly see that but, the brush that he was accumilating was brush he was knocking down to make room for the brush he needed to pile. I told him if he quit clearing bush 30 ft below the road bed, he wouldnt have so much bush to get rid of. Clear out the road and pile that brush along the edge in small piles instead of the mountain of brush he was creating. It came down to almost them loading and leaving. In his effort to prove me wrong before he left, he started clearing just what trees where in the road bed and making little piles as he went. I stopped him and told him, now you are doing what I want, if you can keep doing it that way, then he could keep working. Doing what I wanted eliminated 50% or more of the brush. I think he finally realized that most of the brush he was having to contend with was because of trying to clear way more than he needed to. I stayed with him the rest of the day and would cut off stumps as he dragged the trees out. He went farther after dinner than he did before and we didnt have any more issues. I'll be back tomorrow to supervise and keep him on track. He is about halfway to the top now and a good day tomorrow we should hit the top. Probably about 2 more days of just clearing and then praying for rain so we can burn the brush.

A lot of good size timber coming down. Tomorrow will be getting into the more open and flatter ground. Didnt think to take any pics today
 
Wow - I can't imagine what it would be like for me to move at this time of life, and with 9 kids and 5 garages full of tools and junk. But I'd be selling my wood, and not moving it! Hope you're not going far. Good luck with all of that.
I thought about selling the wood, then I thought to sell it I would need to load and deliver. OK, cash in hand, but then once the house is built, I would have to go out and cut wood and let season. The way I see it, the wood is already cut and split. I have to move it whether I sell it or take to my new home. I decided to just move it to the new site and I will still be a couple years ahead with my firewood.. I dont think the wood will spoil piled up, and I can load with a tractor and dump with my trailer. That beats cutting, splitting, hualing replacement wood.

Got a little work done today, but then it came a big thunder storm and shut us down. Grading guy said he may try to start burning some of the brush this evening. Got to go get some hotdogs and marshmellows:sweet:
 
I wonder how many people you encounter on this journey think this is your first rodeo and need to be corrected.
Not sure I understand your question. Everybody has a opinion on how things should be done. My gradeing contractor I have know since he was in diapers. I have seen plenty of his and his dads work over the years. His ideals and opinons are based on what he has learned and what was required in the past. This is where our disagreements start. I dont want what he is used to doing for 95% of everyone he has worked for in the past. We had discussed how I wanted the road done long before the work started. We walked the line twice, him telling me I needed to do this and me saying I wanted something else. Two hard heads beating against each others. Bottom line, I am the one paying. I let him start the job and he immediantly started doing things his usual way, which would of satisfied 95% of the folks he has worked for in the past. It wasnt what we discussed. Because of a meeting I had to be in, he had went about 100ft before I got on the site. That was as far as he was going to go if he didnt change what he was doing. Once the contractor got on site and was faced with pulling off the job and not getting paid, or doing what I asked, it was better for him to just do what I wanted. From that point forward, he changed his methods and I am satisfied with the work. The operator said today that what I wanted was much easier than what he had been doing and is moving much faster. Of course it is, he not clearing out half the brush he started out moving. I am keeping a lot of my mature trees and smaller ones that help hide the road. I dont have that great big scar around the hill side I would of had if he continued as he started. Now if the contractor doesnt get me a skidder on site to move the logs, we might have to have another meeting of hard heads. I have been stump cutting as the operator pushes down the trees and he has been dragging the whole trees out to a clearing, but it is getting to far to drag logs with a trackhoe. I told the contractor, if he would tell me how long he wanted the logs, I would buck them up while I was there. 1500ft of road creates a lot of logs. If he would just bring his skidder, I would keep the logs skidded out of the way. I'm paying by the foot and anything I do would just speed things up so he could move on to the next job. Its not like I havent been around this kind of stuff all of my life.
 
I have fought this battle for years about maintaining logging roads, loggers wanting to do things the old way. Gut the road or push out a mud hole, when the next rain came you had a bigger mud hole or a washed out road. I started requiring in their contract that they maintain the roads in as good a shape as they found them. It was amazing when they knew they would have to fix what they tore up or hall dirt in to fix what they pushed out this crap stopped.

You are doing the right thing, the more they disturb the more problems you will have with erosion.
 
Not sure I understand your question.
It wasn't a question. Merely observing how many people there are who fail to adequately consider alternative ways, as if they know best when all they really know is how they have been taught. Bottom line, the client gets what the client wants or the contractor doesn't get paid. If the contractor can be taught a thing or two from the client along the way, even better. Likewise if the client can be taught a thing or two by the contractor, but bottom line, the client isn't often in it for the lessons, rather to get things done the way they want them.
 
It wasn't a question. Merely observing how many people there are who fail to adequately consider alternative ways, as if they know best when all they really know is how they have been taught. Bottom line, the client gets what the client wants or the contractor doesn't get paid. If the contractor can be taught a thing or two from the client along the way, even better. Likewise if the client can be taught a thing or two by the contractor, but bottom line, the client isn't often in it for the lessons, rather to get things done the way they want them.
OK, I see what you where suggesting. I have also been on the other side of the fence dealing with unreasonable demands from the client. The problems usually start when they want this and that but dont want to pay for it. Right now, I might be seen as the unreasonable client making unreasonable demands. I get it. We started burning brush this morning, starting with his geart big pile in his great big cleared area. As the fire burnt down we started pileing all his small pile where we changed his clearing methods. The operator even committed how much better things looked. He has a pc200 Kamatsu, he can pick up a big pile of brush with one swipe. Most of his little piles he can get with just one pick. Your waiting on brush to burn down anyways, so what if you have to carry a few buckets full of brush a couple hundred feet. It burns as fast as you can put it on the pile. In the mean time, the trees and brush you would have pushed down with his original method is still standing. I feel it takes longer and is more work to clear that wood than it does to pick up a few small piles and carry to the brush pile and you only burning one pile. Of course, he might be half way to the house site and that is to far to carry brush so we will make another burn pile and will probably have another pile at the end. . I took a couple pics this morning before the rainstorm set in. I'll upload them and post in a few minutes.
 
I have decided my next house will be a barndominium style home. I want zero maintenance on the outside and steel buildings can last decades without even needing paint.
Good luck, I know you have a lot of work ahead of you.
 
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