Finally Bought Some Land

[rwsaunders]

Jorn...looking good. Here’s a construction joke...Mike will get this. When I see your last photos, there’s a Lull in the action...https://www.equipupstore.com/searchi...ift&mysec=2217

[lumpy]

Le bois est arrivé!

c'est ce qu'elle a dit.

[guido]

What are all the orange topped stakes for?

[j44ke]

The stakes are rebar for reinforcement of the porch slab that hasn't been poured yet. I think weather got in the way, so they went ahead and did some framing work in the meantime. I get an update this week.

The orange tops are to prevent the carpenters from putting an eye out or otherwise impaling themselves on rebar if they slip in the snow, on the ice, in the mud, on a board, or on one of the rebar sticking up out of the concrete. There are so many ways to impale oneself on a job site.

[j44ke]

c'est ce qu'elle a dit.

Excellent use of French. Chapeau.

Jorn...looking good. Here’s a construction joke...Mike will get this. When I see your last photos, there’s a Lull in the action...https://www.equipupstore.com/searchi...ift&mysec=2217

Yeah I had to look that one up when I saw the line for it in the SOV. I thought I had to pay for everyone to just stand around and wait for something to happen. Instead I am paying for a forklift called a lull to just stand around and wait for something to happen.

[mnoble485]

00509430-13A1-4602-BEB6-D4B9CFDD2FC5.jpg

Jorn,
A job site can go from utter madness to being a ghost town in a matter of minutes. It’s frustrating but it happens. I like walking my jobs after everyone is gone just to get a different perspective. Your rebar “mushrooms” are good but if I’m going to be picky they don’t meet the new OSHA standards.

And again, I love a neat and clean job site. Well done.

Mike

[j44ke]

Mike, I'm saying thanks for the guys who are actually doing all of it. They obviously spend some time at the end of the day sorting wood and cleaning up.

I was out at the site today, and we lost 1 cherry and 3 more pines in the high winds. Fortunately 2 pines fell well away from the site, and the close one fell in entirely the opposite direction from the house site. The cherry was along the drive. Looking at it, the core of the tree was like cork, so it was only a matter of time before it fell. The pines were otherwise healthy, but the roots were really shallow as they were going on one of the rock ledges that run through the property. No well rooted healthy tree has fallen on our property yet that I know. Most have some trunk defect, rot or injury, or they are growing in a very poor location and only being supported by the trees around them.

They've nearly gotten to the roof framing. Or rather, they've just started the roof framing. Beams in. There are metal columns supporting the roof in spots, but the carpenters are going to frame the roof and then the metal guy will come in and fit the metal columns in place. In the meantime, there are braces and supports carrying the load of the roof framing. Like a lot of the sub-contractors working with our GC, the carpenter and the metal guy have worked together (and with the GC) for 20+ years. As one of them said, they know what each other had for breakfast without asking.

[davids]

I hate losing trees, but sometimes it's for the best.

We had large leafy tree at the corner of our side yard. It shaded the lawn, anchored the corner and looked lovely, at least from the house. But by last spring the 10'-15' branches overhanging our private way were clearly deadfall waiting to happen. And when we had an arborist out to look at it, he was able to peal sheets of bark off the trunk with a single hand. It sounds like your cherry tree was in similar shape.

So it had to go:

before.jpg after.jpg

This spring we'll plant a smoke tree in that spot, and a line of dwarf sumac along the private way outside the (new) fence. It'll be many years until the new tree fills that spot, but we're getting it going.

[j44ke]

We'll have to reappraise some of the tree locations and probably take a few more out to protect the house.

There are areas where we will put in lines of birch and/or aspen. They are great pioneer trees, grow fast, reproduce themselves through roots and offer a nice addition to the color palette of the forest in all seasons. Plus they are good privacy screens, not that privacy is a huge issue with this site, but everyone likes a good nest.

And we'll put in a few strategically placed maples, also for color, but those will probably be right at the house and perhaps along the drive only.

I am 55 this year, so almost anything we plant now will be mature after I am gone, unless I live to 100. Seems like managing the forest, rather than reshaping it to any great extent, is the way to go. We'll have to do some removal periodically for safety, so no one gets clobbered when they hike around the property, but mostly the plan is build some paths and let the trees fall where they do.

[mnoble485]

Jon,
Good subcontractors are worth their weight in gold. (And they usually know it). I try to thank the men on my job often. I mean it when I say it and I believe they appreciate it. The superintendent that I came up under taught me that.

Mike

[j44ke]

... I try to thank the men on my job often. I mean it when I say it and I believe they appreciate it. ...

Each time I have said thank you on this job I get a little window into the lack of expressed gratitude from most of their clients.

Of course, doesn't mean we don't negotiate on the price of doors and hinges.

[ides1056]

I planted acorns not too long ago that are not Oaks 50' high. Collected seed from examples I like in CP, NY Botanical Garden, etc.

I've earlier express my concern about the pines. We had a big mess here with electric lines down everywhere, and part of the problem was the several years' work done by the utility to clear the right of way, which then gave a pathway to larger trees to fall onto the lines, with nothing to hit along the way.

I would keep all the pine trees away from your house. They are just too much of a liability.

[j44ke]

Yep, we are going to bring the arborist and his guys in for one more round of snipping.

Yesterday was a great day for house photography.

[ides1056]

That view looks enticing, and I would happily come over with my saw and whack the lot down; as long as I am not looking northwest in photo #3 , because that is the direction the winter wind comes from.

[j44ke]

That's looking southwest. We may thin the pines a bit, but not until we have lived there for a while and figured out which and where. And we will take a few down around the house that look too close after that wind a couple weeks ago. Otherwise, the screening effect of the tall pines was part of what we liked about the site. And they look denser in the photos than in person. So nice view even with the pines, plenty of sunset, and a reasonable cooling effect from the pine "screen".

Yesterday evening I was showing our landlords around the site. As we were walking back down the drive - generally in the direction of the porta-jon beyond the two trash cans in photo #3 - I looked up at one of the pines that overlooks our neighbor's property at the base of the slope and there was an immature Bald Eagle sitting on a limb above where our cars were parked. It was definitely getting ready for the evening, so not all that willing to give up its perch and we got pretty close before it took off. Pretty cool bird to have "in the yard" as it were. :-)

[htwoopup]

I know your arborists, you, and many others here are more versed in this stuff than me.

But, I will say that some friends of mine that have a place near Stanfordville had to cut back trees further from their house than planned due to the flying squirrels that somehow would get from the trees into the eaves and then the house. But then again, they had a different kind of construction so this may be moot. But I thought I should mention it just in case...

[j44ke]

A concern of course, but on the very few parts of the house that are not glass, there will be concrete board. Squirrels have remarkable teeth, but the board is pretty tough. And they could glide to the house, but I think they’d run out of altitude upon leaving.

Way back when all this started we looked at a grand old Victorian that was so tall it was evidently hard to find painters willing to paint it. It had one small hole way up in the point of one of the eaves, and an attic full of flying squirrels. I expect those squirrels had a glide distance of 2 miles from that house.

[j44ke]

Lots of things going on right now, not all of them having to do with our house in the country. NYC DOB rewrote their elevator code, and we either have to reconfigure our door interlock controls or get a whole new elevator or both. The interlock upgrade is due Jan 1, 2020 and the elevator upgrade (has to do with the way the elevator lowers and rises and how the braking mechanism operates) is due Jan 1, 2027. Our elevator is 56 year old DC single cable automatic, so there isn't much about it that will work with the new 2027 code,. As a result, if we just do the 2020 interlock upgrade now (about $20-40K,) we'd be throwing away money because we'd have to replace our elevator entirely by Jan 1, 2027 (about $250K.) So we probably should upgrade everything now, get a good price before the elevator companies start inflating their prices closer to the deadline and minimize downtime versus later when everyone else is doing their elevator. This is a lot of work though, stressful and why didn't we do this earlier? Well long story.

So it is a relief to dive into country house stuff. We closed on what we are calling the Annex - about 47 acres of pine, hemlock, aspens and cherry with some nice hills, a retired beaver pond and more stream frontage adjoining the southern half of our eastern border. It came up for sale, already has a small gravel pit on it, and we just thought if we don't we'll regret it. So we did. Without realizing it, having the two properties makes a nice green section that runs right through the middle of our area from road to road, making for a nice buffer against development (it is coming, I can feel it) and creating a bit of a woodsy highway for critters.

Meanwhile the framing continues up to the roof. I think they are going to frame the roof over the porch area after they put all the windows in place, because that is going to be a white-knuckle adventure. Big windows. Big glass doors. I am very confident that everything will work though. So far, all the work has been great.

Big white pine (hard to get scale here) grove on the new Annex.



Me showing how far out the roof will extend. Photo by friends.

[ides1056]

cool

[72gmc]

It would be fun if a young toothy lad with ambition came along and restored the dam on your property.