Colors

It has happened again...Autumn has tiptoed in and started to color the leaves. Kali and I have been crunching through the fallen ones while we walk in the mornings.



Mom and Dad have been adding color to their house. The great room has been painted and the pine tongue-in-groove ceiling has been installed. Isn't it lovely?




On the outside, the forest green fascia contrasts nicely with the logs. And isn't the blue sky gorgeous?



Mom's arm is pretty colorful right now too. She fell from a ladder while painting this week, and luckily didn't break any bones, but has lots of bruises and sore muscles.

200

200 posts...gee...who knew I had that much to say?

Hurricane (or has he been demoted to a Tropical Storm?) Earl must be making his way past our part of the world right now. My laundry is about to be blown off the clothes line. Grey clouds pile up, then blow away.

We have had plenty of strange weather lately. August sweated us out with 5 days over 90* in the past week. Now it is in the 60's. The girls have sweaters on. It's such a pleasant change!

The garden is slowing down. I brought in lots of produce today. We have lots of acorn squash, butternut squash and pumpkins on the vine, but I'm trying to leave them in until first frost.



I'm going to be pickling peppers this weekend: jalapenos, pepperoncinis, and serranos.

Mom and Dad's house is coming right along. All of the dry wall is hung. My friend, T, who can do absolutely ANYTHING, was out today mudding seams with Dad. Here's a couple of pictures of the inside of the house:



The great room looking toward the front door and the stairway.



The great room looking the other direction. The wall on the left is kitchen. The small hallway leads to the laundry room/pantry on the left, master bedroom straight ahead, and bathroom to the right.

Kali and I have been taking longer walks lately, we both need the extra exercise. We were walking through the mist a few mornings back, and startled a flock (?) of turkeys. As they were squawking and flapping over our heads, I was reminded why I love it here. Despite the frequent power outages, and the monstrous amount of yard and garden work, I wouldn't want to be any where else. True, I feel a bit isolated some times, but my friends are just minutes away in the Burg. This is where I belong.

Progress

It's high time for me to post some pictures of progress on the hex house.

Now that the roof and deck are on, most of the work has been inside, which is harder to document. The stairs are in, as are all of the interior walls. Dad has been working on wiring, and has the basement finished. He also has all but one of the exterior doors and windows installed in the basement and first floor. There will be 5 more in the gazebo up top.



Mom has been spending hours and hours doing this:



She is sanding the interior of the logs so that they can stain the walls.

Meanwhile, we have finally finished putting up the fence around the garden. We started with 3 foot wide landscaping cloth, then pounded 7 foot T-posts in a foot every 10 feet. Then we attached 5 foot deer fencing, with 2 feet of chicken wire at the bottom. The chicken wire is stapled to the ground with garden staples every 18". Finally, the 8 foot terminal posts were pounded in 2 feet and the garden gate was installed. All very complex, but hopefully it will keep the critters big and small out of the garden, and we shouldn't have to weed-eat the weeds under/around the fencing. Our scarecrow, "Lazy Laura", is at work, standing around and watching the birds.



We have a lot of things planted now...tomatoes, peppers, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweet corn, carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, beets, and turnips. I still need to get some jalapeno plants to put out, and some herbs. We will also plant a couple of more plantings of corn a week or two apart. There will be a bunch of the garden that is unused this year, so perhaps we can put some more flowers in there.



Those peas that we planted in the mud last week are popping up...progress of another kind!

Collections

There is never a dull moment up here on Poplar Ridge.

On Thursday, this 80 foot semi came up our hill to deliver my parents' metal roofing material in the middle of a rain storm.



The following day, my brother arrived in Pittsburgh from Austin, TX to help with the roof raising this coming week. Here he is in the Hidey Hole with the girls, reading letters that some fairies left there for the girls.



Saturday the bulldozer dude arrived and flattened the area for our barn. The gravel for the floor of the barn and for the driveway will come later this week.



JP and I marked out the area for our veggie garden, and he started digging it up.



The whole thing will be 100' x 50'.



This weekend, I've been collecting things:

These rocks are for the raised shade bed that I plan to build on the North side of the house (are you proud, Martin?)



This is what is left of the sticks, small trees, rose bushes and grape vines that I've been grubbing out from around the trees in the yard. I managed to clean out around 4 more trees this weekend.

There are only 2 bushes left to plant from the small nursery worth that I have brought home lately. The girls and I made up a song, which can be sung to the tune of "12 Days of Christmas".

10 baby boxwoods
8 Cleveland pear trees
3 Forsythia
1 cotoneaster
2 maple trees
2 andromeda
and a Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree

There are some other things I've collected which are too disturbing to photograph, such as the scratches on my arms, the ticks, and the garbage JP and I picked up from down by the creek.

Kali also has an impressive collection of stitches on her belly from her spay surgery on Monday. She is back to acting nearly normal, although she still isn't eating much.

Starting tomorrow we will begin collecting volunteers for the roof raising, most of whom will stay here at the house.

Lest I repeat myself, there is never a dull moment up here on Poplar Ridge!

Out with the new, in with the old...

...technology, that is. Our builder was back today to tear out the propane powered on-demand, tankless water heater. He replaced it with a propane powered tank-style water heater. Tonight, I had HOT water shortly after turning it on in the kitchen, for the first time since we moved in. We also paid our last bill, making the house building project on Poplar Ridge officially completed.

The fun never stops up here though. Tomorrow we are expecting the excavators for our barn building project. Next week, my parents start their roof raising with a bunch of family volunteers.

In the meantime, I have to 'fess up that I completely lost my cool tonight.

I don't remember whether I have mentioned the third world type hovel that exists down the road, at the bottom of the hill. We call it "F-ville" (where the "F" is a name, NOT a bad word). It is not unusual to have to slow or stop when driving through on this road for assorted animals, children, toys or cars that don't run. It is disturbing, to say the least, and definitely unsafe. I never drive faster than 25 or 30 mph through F-ville, even though the posted speed limit is 40.

This evening, when returning from a refreshing dinner out with my girlfriends, I had to stop abruptly for a puppy that ran into the road in F-ville. Several children were hanging out in the road just a few yards further on, and one of the girls appeared shocked, then started shaking her fists and yelling at me as I drove by. In one of those split second decisions that didn't have much thought put into it, I slammed on my brakes and backed up the truck. The kids took off running. I yelled after them "Don't you yell at me when you can't keep your dog off this road. I didn't have to stop for it, but I did!" It wasn't the most mature thing I've ever done, but it actually made me feel better.

So now you know my dirty little secret: I have issues with my temper!

Spring Cleaning

A quick post today to show what I've been doing for the past couple of days. I waged the war of the roses again yesterday to clean up around a Hickory and Maple (?) tree in the side yard. Being me, I forgot to take a "before" picture, but I found this one from a little over a year ago. Even though there is snow, I think you can make out the multiflora and grape vine going half-way up the (?) tree.



This is what it looks like now. My hands are full of holes!



Speaking of holes, I staked out where I want to put the pears. I underestimated how many I needed by 2. Big Lots is out already, so I'll have to wait until next year. Dad bought a post-hole digger and 12" auger for the tractor today, so I won't have to dig all those holes manually...whew!



The hex house is unwrapped this week, so I took a picture of the hex lookout room.



This is the view towards our house and the North...



...and this is the view South towards our neighbor's field. Pretty nice, wouldn't you say?



I need to get ready for my last Landscaping class. We are going on a field trip today, to look at a garden that our instructor did recently. He keeps hinting about wine and cheese being involved...sounds good to me!

Under Wraps

I finally got a rough draft drawn of my landscaping project for this year, thanks to the input of my Landscaping classmates and instructor. It is a fairly ambitious project, seeing as there is NOTHING here, so I'm hoping to work hard this year, and reap some of the rewards next year! I am really anxious to get started, but it's still a bit early to plant around here, so I guess I should start digging! I will share more as I have things to share!

First off, I visited our friendly neighborhood BigLots store yesterday, and came home with 10 trees. I got 8 Cleveland pears (an ornamental variety - to line the driveway), a silver maple and a red maple. I am waiting a bit to see if we can use the tractor to dig 10 holes before I tackle that project myself.



In the meantime, I salvaged a huge bunch of daffodils that I noticed down across the road. J and I planted almost 60 bulbs at the base of some of the trees around the house. I hope I didn't traumatize them too much, but I'm pretty confident of the hardiness of daffodils.



I also waged war against the multiflora, the prolific wild rose that is EVERYWHERE in this area. Since our property was basically empty for at least 20 years before we bought it, the wild grape vine and multiflora had pretty much taken over around every standing tree.

In the meantime, my Dad had his cousin here this week to help build. They got up the rafters for the roof.



They were also able to put up the "lookout" on the house. This will be the first cupola on top of their house, with views out the windows for 300 degrees. The room beneath it is load bearing for the roof and cupola, and will be the bathroom: the heart of the house!



When it is covered to protect against rain, it looks like some mad science project under wraps.



Hooray for Spring and growing things!

Two (Sweet) Peas and a PODS

Saturday morning, my parents' PODS arrived. It is a pretty nifty deal. The truck arrived with the PODS unit on the back.

The support system with wheels spread out from the unit and the wheels extended down to the ground.




Next, the PODS unit was lifted up from the truck body, and suspended from the supports.


This left the truck free to drive out from underneath.



The unit was lowered down to the ground (it is attached to a pallet)...




...then the support system was navigated over the PODS unit...



...and back over the truck.



Finally, the supports were lowered back down to the truck bed and secured.



The whole process took about 15-20 minutes.

Everyone is in a mood for building it seems. The girls were busy today with Duplo blocks and Lincoln logs.




L built a series of animals.




J built a house and an outhouse.

And now JP wants to work on the computer, so good night!

Water Witching

This morning, my husband met a gentleman at the property who will be drilling a well for us. This person is quite a reputable driller in our area, and he chose a location for us this morning by dowsing, first using some wires, and then (after scouring the woods) with a cherry wood branch. Having lived in Appalachia for the past 10 years, we know that the area is steeped in folklore. Although he did not choose a location WE would have picked, we will wait and see what happens when he drills!

On the flip side of the technology coin, I got a call from Japan this morning. A gentleman there saw my other website to sell the house, and wants to have his brother come check it out!! I continue to be amazed by the internet!

Step One...the setting

it doesn't look like much at this point...2005

3 years ago, while tooling around on the Internet, my husband came across a listing on Realtor.com for 48 acres for sale in Waynesburg, PA. My parents, who are planning to retire in 2010 and relocate from Reading, PA to Greene Co., urged us to jump at the chance, and gave us significant help in purchasing the property. They are extremely excited to build there, close to us. My Dad is going to build his dream house, a hexagonal log cabin, with his own hands.

We planned to build on the property too, at some point. This was a vague, cloudy sort of dream until last year when we asked my brother to design us a house. My brother, F, is a gifted artistic person, and conveniently, an Architect. On the downside, he lives in Austin, TX...a bit more than driving distance from our homestead! F took our sketches and ramblings, and turned them into a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the masterpiece would cost about twice what we could afford to pay, so he (very patiently) re-drew and re-worked until we ended up with the final plans that look something like this.

proposed house

In the meantime, we have done quite a bit to develop the property. We had about 3 acres cleared on the top of the hill, put in a LONG drive, developed a spring for water, put in a septic system and electricity. We have also had the opportunity to use it as the great hunting grounds for the past 2 years.

the road going in...Nov. 2006

aerial view from summer 2007 with rough boundary lines...you can see the area we cleared!

the first electric pole...9/14/08!!

Today, we signed for our construction loan, and met with our builder at the property. After a strange conversation involving which trees were staying and why, I heard the words that nearly stopped my heart: "I think we can start excavating next week!" It's hard to believe that this in-the-clouds project is really going to happen!!

this is our building site...on top of the hill!

We are trying to sell our current house ourselves. After working to create an information website for that, I feel like a pro, and wanted to document this undertaking in a blog. On top of that, I decided to homeschool my daughter for Kindergarten this year (we are doing Agora Cyber Charter School), so the upheaval in my life at the moment seems overwhelming at times. But it's good...it's all good.

Thus begins the House on Poplar Ridge.