Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for as we celebrate our first Thanksgiving as residents of the State of New York!

We are so grateful to all our family, friends, co-workers - whether you did the heavy lifting of the physical parts of moving or gave much-needed love, prayers and support - we appreciate all of you!  We couldn't have realized this dream without you!

Can't pass up this opportunity to thank my wonderful husband, Jim.  Through tears and laughter, we've started out on this crazy adventure together.  I treasure my life with you and am grateful for you everyday - I love you!

May you all have a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving!

11.26.2013

We woke up to our first snowfall since we've been here!  It wasn't much - just a pretty coating on the cars and driveways - streets were just wet.

We had to deal with some apartment visitors in the morning - first our landlord came by to install a non-programmable thermostat!  Part of the deal with this apartment was that we had free heat.  Well, apparently these new owners don't want us to be too toasty - they set it at 68 degrees!  Jim told him to move it up to 69 and he did.  But 69 degrees in here was chilly.  The big office underneath us is empty and unheated and I'm sure there is absolutely no insulation in the walls.  Jim cracked the nonprogrammable code and was able to bump up the temps a tad.

Then the Time Warner tech supervisor came - we are still having issues with the NBA League Pass package we bought so that we can watch the Cleveland Cavs (although they've been kind of painful to watch!).  We haven't been able to watch one game without some sort of technical issue and have had the repair guy out here twice already.  They've replaced all the connectors, the digital box - this guy replaced all the wires coming across the street and into the apartment.  We'll see what happens tonight.  But since all of our other channels have been fine the whole time, we're kind of doubtful this will fix the issue.

Anyway, after lunch we headed to the land to unload the dozer blade so that we could return the trailer.  So it was just the reverse of how they put it in - minus the giant excavator!

So now it's all safe and sound on the land.  We returned the trailer and Jim went back up to the land to just hook it up to the Bobcat and make sure it works - which it did!  He has to make an electrical connection to make all the hydraulics work but he has time for that over the winter.  We're thrilled with the buy!

 

Thankfully, it looks like the big storm that's hitting a lot of this part of the country isn't going to affect us much.  It's supposed to be mostly rain for us.

 

 

 

11.25.2013 - Road trip for dozer blade

So thankfully the bigger trailer was at the U-Haul store when he went there early this morning.  We headed out next to the land to pick up some tools (Jim always is prepared as well as possible in case of any mechanical issues along the way!). 

We went and looked at the foundation digging - he had smoothed it all out since I had left - it looks amazing! 

Then with coffee and Diet Coke aboard, we set out for Buffalo.  It was a great trip - not much traffic and no weather issues.

Jim was thrilled when we got there and the blade looked better than he imagined!  Although it's been sitting for awhile, it's brand new and Jim said the quality was wonderful.  So we went inside and handed over the cash!

Then it was the small matter of getting the blade into the trailer.  Check out the size of this excavator they used!  Boy, if we had that we could dig the foundation in no time!

They chained it up to the bucket and then just set it down in the trailer.

All ready to head back home!

 

The truck did a great job pulling the trailer and the blade - probably a total of about 2500 pounds!  And no issues with traveling.  We were very fortunate - we stopped at a Cracker Barrel to eat around Syracuse and the manager was telling another table that they were expecting 10" of snow and a couple inches of ice on Tuesday!  Whew...so glad we got this done before the storm blew in!

 

 

 

11.24.2013

The wind was howling today and looked cold - we used part of the day to organize the box room a bit to get the bed set up in there.  Looks pretty good!  Jim took a few boxes to the Corinth storage and we have boxes in the hallway that we will take to the book storage.  But it's nice to have it set up.  Kyle & Julia will hopefully be here for Thanksgiving so I wanted it off the agenda.

Jim made sure to make all the arrangements early with U-Haul for the trailer we need in order to pick up the dozer blade tomorrow.  He was supposed to pick it up tonight so we can get an early start tomorrow and hopefully be able to do this all in one day.  But when he got there a little before 4:00, the trailer wasn't back from the person who had rented it.  They closed at 5:00 so Jim killed time to see if he would return it - but no such luck.  They have a smaller one but Jim isn't 100% certain that the blade will fit on it.  So now we just have to keep fingers crossed that it will be back in the morning.

Update:  Jim just checked all the dimensions for the blade and it should fit in the smaller trailer okay.  So even if the other one isn't back, we should be fine.  Whew...that makes me feel better!

 

11.23.2013

Despite these gorgeous blue skies, it was pretty chilly today - at one point we even saw a few snow flakes twirling around but they just lasted for a few minutes.  Jim and I both donned our coveralls (I actually found Kyle's old pair from when he was little!)

Jim is making progress on digging the foundation.  It's exciting to see it take shape!

Jim let me take a turn at the controls.  That look of panicked concentration pretty much sums it up!  I actually dug one scoop of dirt but it was pretty terrifying!  Way too many joy stick type controls - I could never remember which did what!

The view from up in the excavator is much different than looking at it from the ground!  I can see how it would be so hard to figure out if you are digging too much - it all looks like you're digging a giant hole.

We didn't have too long to work but still some good progress was made!

 

It's supposed to get really chilly overnight and tomorrow - you could tell the winds were blowing in something.  We don't plan to work on the land tomorrow - we need to do some things at the apartment and then Jim has to pick up the trailer in anticipation of our road trip on Monday to pick up the bulldozer blade!

 

11.21.2013 - First Scoop of Dirt!

Today was a big red letter day!  Jim dug the very first scoop of dirt for the carriage house foundation!  We were really excited - while everything we've done so far has been fun and been important site work steps, this was the first real work on what will eventually be a structure!

Big thumbs up for the first scoop!

I had to run into Saratoga Springs this morning to pick up a new battery for the chipper, so I didn't get to the land until after lunch.  By that time, Jim had gotten the laser level all set up and ready to go.  It is so nice!  The optical level is good for certain things (like when we were figuring out elevations on the driveway) but with the laser level Jim got it all set up and calibrated, got a reference point set on the driveway area, then attached the detector to the measuring stick - then we could move the stick all around and it would beep when it was at the same level as the reference point.  Very cool!

So Jim would dig for a little while and then I would grab the stick and see how much more he needed to dig in that area.  We are basically working on a hill and so your eyes do funny things to your frame of reference - you think you're digging too deep but the level would tell you that you need to dig further.  It was a lot of fun, even though it will take us awhile to get into a rhythm.  To add to the fun, because the nights have been cold, the top layer of dirt freezes overnight.  Then it melts when the sun comes out - so we are basically working in a mud pit!  You have to be careful because it gets pretty slick!

For now, Jim was digging and just placing the dirt next to him. 



In between holding the stick for measuring, my other task today was to mark off the general footprint of the carriage house so that Jim had a reference for digging.  He had stakes set up out of the way and had already done two sides, but I needed to do the other two.  I stretched twine between the stakes and then took our new marking tool (a birthday present from Kyle & Julia!) and mark off paint lines.  Then I had to estimate 3 feet from the line and mark another line - because he'll want to dig out farther than the foundation so we have room to work.  I discovered that I'm not real skilled at that job - my lines aren't real straight and I somehow managed to get quite a bit of paint on the twine as well as a few splatters on my boots!  Poor Jim - good help is hard to find!

 

At the end of the day when it was time to quit, Jim just pushed the dug up dirt out of the way with the Bobcat.  We're going to need more dirt over in the barn area, but we're going to have tons and tons of dirt - anyone need any?

11.20.2013

Jim spent the afternoon just working on the machines - it was a little too chilly to do much else.  He got all the stumps moved over to the area with the rocks and wood and then went back to doing some grading.

Check out this rock!  We sure have found some big ones!  Jim also got a couple of the big rocks moved down to the end of the driveway.  Eventually when we get the gate up, we want to be able to close off the whole front entrance and we'll use the rocks to do that.

Jim got more of the driveway and sides done going back to the carriage house.

11.18.2013

Thankfully, we didn't get any of the severe weather that some parts of the country got yesterday and last night, but we did have some rain that woke me up in the middle of the night.  But all was well in the morning with temps expected to get into the mid 50s before crashing in the evening.

I read in the paper this morning that the village of Corinth was once again under a boil alert - this time for low chlorine levels due to the power outage on Saturday.  We never did hear what caused that and the boil alert has been in effect since Sunday but we were oblivious to that fact.

Jim had to go chat with the insurance guy again this morning - when he came home he said he saw an ominous sign in front of the apartment - a crew from the village was going around and putting these poles on the fire hydrants - so they know where they are in case they are buried in snow!  Never seen anything like that before!  So while you can see from this picture that there's no snow in sight, I'm sure it will be coming.  While I'm hoping for good weather for awhile longer so we can continue to work at the land, I have plenty of books to read when the snow sets in!

Jim wasn't sure what condition the driveway would be and how hard it might be to get up if it was all muddy, but he had some machine maintenance that he figured he could do no matter what.  So he headed up after lunch.  He called later and said everything was in good shape so I headed up to help with the plan for the day - chipping up some of the piles we've been accumulating by the tree cutting and forest cleaning.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find the other pair of ear protection so Jim did all the chipping and I went back to dragging branches out of the woods.  He got lots done before the sun started setting quickly and we stopped for the night.

The sun setting behind the clouds made for quite the pretty picture this evening!

 

11.17.2013

Jim got a little bit of an early start for a Sunday because the weather forecast was for rain in the afternoon.  He spent his day clearing the topsoil off of the area of the carriage house in anticipation of digging the foundation!



This picture is taken from the driveway to the carriage house - you can really get an idea of what it will look like!

 

By late afternoon, the rain set in.  He had to get all the equipment tucked away in the rain so he came home kind of soggy.

 

 

 

 

11.16.2013

Another beautiful day - we know this will be ending so we are trying to get as much done as possible. I stayed home in the morning because I'm still in the thick of fire school work.  All of a sudden, the computer battery back up started beeping like it normally does when the power goes out - but lights and computer were still working.  I called Jim and he said maybe the battery in the back up unit were going out.  So I continued working...then the internet died.  I gave up and went out to make lunch.  When I went to the other side of the apartment, Jim's battery back ups were going off.  I called Jim again and he said he was going to come home to see what was going on.  I had hardly hung up with him and all the power in the apartment went out.  I needed to get to the post office, so I took off to do that.  Only then did I discover that all the power in the town was out!  No traffic lights, nothing at the post office or bank - the postmaster said it was wide spread and the whole village was out.  When I got home, Jim was there - he told me that the apartment building generator had kicked on enough to power everything for awhile (not real long though!) which was why I still had lights and power but why the battery back up was on.  Lesson learned - I totally forgot about the generator!  Later we looked on the phone and National Grid just showed that the entire village was affected and they were hoping to get power on by 4:00.

So we grabbed lunch and went back to the land.  Jim had gotten all the trees cut up and moved over to the storage area in the morning - that's a lot of wood!

Then after lunch, it was time to dig out the 3 stumps from the trees he had cut down.  Look at the size of that stump!

And check out this one - it was huge!  This was from that live tree that split when he cut it down.

Then Jim got the stump areas filled back in and graded off again - looking beautiful! 

Our stump pile is really growing!  We have to figure out what to do with all these eventually.

While Jim was busy with all of that, I spent the time gathering up more branches and logs left over from the tree cutting they did before we bought the land.

 

Here's the pile of gathered branches I've dragged up ready to be chipped.  We did our first chipping on the property last Thanksgiving - might become a family tradition!

 

There wasn't much time left because we wanted to go to church, but Jim started moving topsoil from the area where the carriage house will go.  Then it will be time to start digging the area for the carriage house foundation!  That is SO exciting!

Thankfully, the power was restored by the time we got back to the apartment so we could get cleaned up and head into church.

 

 

11.15.2013

It was another nice November day - temps in the 50s and sunny skies!  Perfect for some lot clearing jobs!

Jim took this picture yesterday as he was wrestling getting one of the stumps out.  He encountered this big rock while digging too.

Jim finally got a chance to put his new pallet forks for the Bobcat to use.  With them, he was able to scoop under the tree stumps and just move them to another location - he said it worked so much better than trying to get them into the bucket.



This is the giant pile of stumps that Jim took out!

And this is definitely a pretty "after" picture - yesterday's picture had all those stumps in it - they're all gone and Jim got a basic grading of the area done.

This afternoon it was time to cut down some trees that are also in the too-near vicinity of the carriage house.  This first one was obviously dead but pretty meaty.

Down it comes!

And a few more...

They look so skinny in the pictures but the reality is much different - and you should hear the noise when they fall!

The next one Jim cut down did something very unusual - it really just split apart!

Look at this remaining part - you can see both of Jim's cuts and where the tree just split!

Of course, then Jim had lots of tree cutting and moving to do.

While he was doing that, I kept myself busy dragging more junk out of the near woods to clean that area up.  Things are looking pretty spiffy!

Tomorrow Jim will have to get all these stumps out from today's tree cutting.  It's supposed to be a nice weekend so we want to take advantage of that.