The Driveway - Part 2 (picture heavy)

Here's a very bad picture (I can't figure out how to save a pic for download from Google Maps) of the whole plot (the rectangle in the middle of the picture). Our property & house is in the lower left. The red line shows the route down the dirt road & across BPC's field. The yellow line shows coming in from my Dad's gate & across the pond dam. And the green line shows the new driveway, pretty much a straight shot in. Note: This will be a good reference to determine how often Google snaps pictures from space. This shot has the deck & dock we put in just last year (2012).

After we agreed w/the family friend, we walked the property & they decided on what equipment would be needed & an approximate timeline (2-3 weeks at the most).

Tractor w/grappling hook

Backhoe for small stuff along the fence line

Excavator for the serious stuff

Here are the before pictures from each end:

Before - from the road

Before - from the house

They started clearing. And, as stated before, it then rained for 40 day & 40 nights (well, it was actually about 10 days & nights, but it felt like 40). It got real muddy & they had to stop for awhile. It rained over 9.5 inches in just a few days. The pond, even though it has a drain & a pretty high damn, overflowed. Normally the drain carries water to the branch but the overflow went through there as well.

Slowly, but surely they cleared away the trees & brush.

They made great progress the first couple of days, before it was time to grade. It started raining the week after the initial clearing & work pretty much stopped until March & then it was off & on through April. 

Here it is, finally graded, leveled & dirt added, lots & lots of dirt.

Through the branch looking from house side.

From road, those ruts are just from a golf cart.

They finally finished clearing & grading & adding dirt but it was very soft & squishy in places. In that last picture above, it had not rained for several days & it was still too soft. So, we kept spending money like we actually had it & decided to put rock on top.. 

Through the branch looking towards the house.

Through the branch looking back towards road.

From near the road looking down towards the branch/house.

From the road. That stick is there to tie caution tape across until we can get a gate put in.

I guess we were kind of lucky in that we were able to see it at it's worst & the guys building the drive knew just how high & how much dirt to haul in. We wound up with one culvert at the road to get over the ditch but they put in 2 in the branch area just to be safe.

In the end, we love it! Even though we didn't want to spend the money, the peace of mind in knowing that we aren't dependent on some control freak to allow or block access, is priceless! Plus:

- We get to turn into the driveway off the hard (paved) road. No more getting vehicles covered in clay!

- We have more of a defined area to landscape & fence off.

- We get to drive through a wooded area! It's beautiful & cool in that section. I hope to be able to cultivate some mushrooms in that cool dark area in the future.

- It's a lot smoother than either way we were coming in.

- We don't have to be uber nice to someone we didn't really care for in the first place. We'll wave when going down the road but there will be no invites for dinner or otherwise.

- MIL & FIL don't have to put up with weird people. Well not that one, at least.

Next, we have to put up a gate & eventually a new, matching fence across the front of the property to my Dad's gate to coordinate it all. You know, I have to have it neat.

Note: We started on February 8 & it was finished May 10th. A 2-3 week job that took 3 months!

The Driveway - Part 1

Or, as Greg keeps calling it .... the million dollar 1/2 mile. It feels like we've spent that much, but not quite.

For those that don't know the story, our Country House is located on about 9 acres of a 50 acre plot. The back 1/2 of the plot is where the 4 acre spring fed pond is and it's where my Dad has his house & we have ours, on each side of the pond. So,we are at the back left of the plot if you come in from the front side where my Dad's driveway is. If we were to drive that way each time it meant coming up the meandering drive then driving over the pond dam & then up the hill (relatively speaking) to our house. It's a long bumpy 2/3 mile drive. There are many low spots along the way to get stuck if it has been raining any length of time. Which is exactly what it has been doing the past 2 months & we've gotten stuck a couple of times due to having heavy loads on our trailer. We would have to call someone, usually one of my many cousins in the area, they would have to come & get my Dad's tractor & pull us out. It . is . a  . pain for us & them.

When we originally built the house my Dad's cousin, who has property adjacent to ours told us we could use his driveway to access our house. This meant that we could drive a clay road & go through his gate (rusty & not in very good shape & then through ours). That was fine as long as he had his gate open.

You see, this particular cousin is bi-polar & if his wife ever goes out of town he goes off his meds & does some really strange stuff. Much of the time it includes him closing that rusty gate & locking it so we couldn't get in that way. Plus, he never told us ahead of time that he was going to lock it. Probably because he was is la la land & couldn't find our phone # if his life depended on it. (Note: He's a rich old country boy that doesn't believe in technology & therefore doesn't have a cell phone or an answering machine). Early on, he agreed to letting us lock onto his lock so we could get in even if he wasn't available. Until, one day he decided he didn't want to do that because he didn't know what other folk WE might give our key to. And, he didn't want any old Tom, Dick or Mary to be able to drive across his field. Note: it's about 50 feet across this particular small field to get to our gate. It does open up to a 600 acre field but the gate to that field is locked so no one we invited to go to our house, without us couldn't get into that field.

We never knew what to expect when we drove up there, unless someone else happened to drive down that road & see that he had the gate locked & called to let us know to come in via my Dad's gate. We've been going up there for about 7 years now & he has locked us out 5 or 6 times during that time. He always says, just give him a call & he'll come unlock the gate IF we absolutely needed to come in that way. You see, he's also a bit of a control freak. He likes it when one is indebted to him & likes to hold people by the short hairs. Well, we don't like to be held by those hairs or reliant on anyone but ourselves, so this always got under our skin. Plus, he was just NOT a likable kind of person.

In January of this year, we agreed to have Greg's Mom & Dad move their vacation trailer to the property & started moving buildings (a small trailer, a cookout room & a utility building). We got the trailer moved & that is when bi-polar cousin (we'll just him BPC from now on) went off his meds again. Greg's parents had just gotten the septic installed & were waiting on the electric company to come. They decided to head to town for a few supplies but since there were no clear markings by the road with our address (BPC wouldn't allow) they wrote the address on a piece of cardboard (4x10) & put it on a popsicle stick & propped it up on the fence between some wires that were holding the rusty gate to the fence. When they got back the stick with the address was thrown into our driveway. They didn't think anything of it but got the electric on & headed back to the city.

Note: We had introduced MIL & FIL to the crazy BPC earlier & he was ever so friendly at the time.

When they went back a few days later, guess what? Yep, the rusty gate was locked. They had a trailer full of stuff & there is nowhere to turn around & they didn't have a lock to my Dad's gate & had never come in to the property that way.

My in-laws are in their 80s & MIL gets upset & nervous when someone is stupid & FIL just gets mad. Regardless, we called a cousin to unlock my Dad's gate & they got in but were unsure of what they had done to piss the Ahole off. We assured them that it wasn't them, it was him. Sure enough we checked & BPC's wife had been out of town a few weeks & he was plainly OFF HIS MEDS again.

Note: A Bit of gossip here ...Turns out, his wife hadn't just gone out of town for awhile, she had finally had enough of him & had 'left' him. She's since gone "back to him", oh well.

This last time of him locking us out without warning was the final straw for us. Especially since it now involved him being stupid to 80 year old parents who did nothing to deserve it.

When my Dad deeded us the property, he did in fact deed an easement along with it. This easement runs along BPC's fence line straight up to our house. Why you ask, hadn't we already put in our own driveway? Well, the long & short of it was $$$. This driveway would need to come off a main road (paved - YEAH!) & through about 50 yards of a wooded branch area. It would take several culverts & lots of dirt plus the equipment & labor involved would be enormous, not to mention the cost. Plus, we only have weekends & if we did it ourselves, we estimated it would take about 6 months to complete & completely consume our time & probably a lot of other people's time too.

We had been saving our hard earned $$$ to build a barn/summer kitchen but decided to go ahead & have a driveway put in instead.

We got a friend of the family to do the work, with the right equipment & then it started raining ....

I'm full & I even culled this year!

OK, I'll admit it. It hurts me to toss even the tiniest of seedlings. I want to give them a chance since I lovingly planted them & (in my mind) they are trying so hard. But, I realized that this year I just had waay too many seedlings & not enough room, so I culled. I had saved tomato & pepper seeds & also had leftover seeds in the packets.

Sorry for the bad pic. Southern light streaming in!

My plan is to plant one from the seed packet & one from saved seed (SS) to compare the plants & harvests. I have German Cherry, Reinstaldt Grape, & Park's Whopper tomatoes. Along with California Wonder Pepper that I am experimenting with. Plus, I planted a couple of new (to me) peppers (an Orange & a Yellow from Baker Creek). Plus one new tomato - Homestead from local seed supply store.

Even with culling I still wound up with well over 90 plants! I'll give most to friends since I don't have enough room here in the City & not ready for the Country. I've got to keep experimenting, right?

Full growing rack!

Not so much luck with my herbs. The only thing that came up were a few Cilantro & Flat Leaf parsley plants which got transplanted. No basil or thyme even came up. I'll take another stab at those.

I let my broccoli, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage & romaine from the 'fall' garden, go to seed but wasn't having any luck actually getting seeds ... until yesterday. I finally had the romaine get a few of the dead flower heads get that puffy white stuff & sure enough there were seeds in there! Boy, I need better light & better sight to do much lettuce seed harvesting. I think I got about 1/8 of a teaspoon from 4 or 5 heads.

The broccoli was flowering but I couldn't tell if it had 'gone to seed' until yesterday when one of the separated plants had these on the top. Are these broccoli seed pods?

Sure look like it to me. Note: My Seed to Seed Saving Book is at the Country House & I keep forgetting to bring it home. And, I just haven't made the time to search the internet.

Nothing is happening with the Chinese cabbage or cauliflower & I may have to give up on those as I need to prepare the beds for the spring planting. Plus, I've read that you shouldn't let too many Brassicas(sp?) go to seed at one time.

Our cat (Rister) decided to lay in the area of one of the beds that I had covered due to the cold weather this past weekend. Carrots, onions & leeks under the cover, w/garlic in the uncovered area.

Just taking a nap

What do I hear?

Since we were going to have a hard freeze, I decided to cut back my already growing herbs - Rosemary, Oregano, Sage & Thyme (very little). I dehydrated them on Saturday, Sunday & Monday & wound up w/ 1 qt. + 1 pint Rosemary, 1 1/2 pt Oregano, 1/2 pt Sage & 1 few tablespoons of Thyme.

Also had a couple of bananas that were reaching ripeness & decided to make banana bread using the small pans I had recently bought at an Estate Sale (4$ for 20 of them!).

On another note, moving In-Law's porch & extra buildings is proving to be more difficult than expected. But it is, so we'll deal with it. Should have everything (even the Crepe Myrtles) out of their current location this coming weekend, crossing fingers & toes.

The Driveway at the Country House was cleared but it has been raining almost every day since. Too wet to work. There are 2 VERY wet spots that will need to be filled in & the one over the actual branch will also need a large culvert installed. Plus, they are estimating 30 - 50 loads of dirt will need to be brought in! It all just sounds like much more than we had estimated cost wise. But, it has to be done, so something will be pushed aside until later.

Soup Sunday, New Welcomes & a Strange Vegetable

The last couple of weeks have been uneventful. We went to the Country last weekend & got the 2 asparagus beds straightened & filled w/sticks, poo & straw. Will continue adding compost material until time for planting in March. Forgot the camera so no pic.

Had a bit of drama though. When we got there we were basically locked out of our way in to the property. We had to go to the other side of the property & use my Dad's gate & drive across the pond damn. Quite a ways out of the way but doable. The person who let us use his gate for access has 'gone off his meds' & is a bit crazy w/o them. This is the 3rd or 4th time he's done this so we are done w/him. We'll be putting in a driveway just down the road from my Dad's gate but have  few obstacles we will need to be overcome, such as clearing some woods that has a branch running through it. I'll post our progress.

I got this strange vegetable in my last CSA delivery. 

I cut it up along w/some onion, mushrooms & yellow peppers & roasted them.

I served it w/organic chicken in a creamy asiago cheese sauce. It was delicious.

Greg got some bathroom shelves put up so I could display my milk vases (he calls them graveyard vases). We've had these shelves since last summer & I've been collecting the vases from estate sales during that time. I'm quite pleased w/the results.

For Souper Sunday, I made sausage, kale & lentil soup. I don't like kale & this is about the only way I've found that I can stomach it. I like all other greens (turnip, mustard, collards, etc.), just not this one.

Saute some spicy sausage w/the casing removed
Add onions & any other vegetables you would like (I used parsnip, carrot & a couple of potatoes)
Add rosemary, salt, pepper & cumin
Saute until slightly tender
Wilt in chopped kale along w/some grated nutmeg
Stir in some tomato paste & a cup or so of white wine
I also added a can of chopped tomatoes at this point.
Add lentils & 6-8 cups of liquid (I used a quart of homemade tomato juice, 3 pints of homemade meat stock & 2 cups of water.
Bring to a boil then reduce heat & cook until lentils are tender (about 45 minutes)

This made a lot of soup so I canned most of it (12 pints). I also found a couple of containers of spaghetti & meatballs in the freezer so I thawed those & canned 2 pints of that along w/the soup. The pressure canner is whistling while I type this. Note: This is my 1st time canning any meat products. 75 minutes at 10lb pressure.

Greg just put some ribs on for dinner & I harvested my cauliflower & last of the broccoli. Here's a picture of my bounty.

The largest cauliflower floret is about the size of a baseball. Guess I need to add more sun & fertilizer to my fall/winter garden - lol.

Lastly, I'd like to welcome a few new followers:

Lara from A Primitive Homestead. She's got a real nice blog that talks about a lot of the things we all like. She's going through a rough time right now, as she lost a child last year, so she could use any support available.

Barbara Fitch also joined. Barbara, I didn't see if you have a blog. If so, send me the link, I'd like to read along. Update1: Barbara's blog is 3 Acre Homestead. Head on over & tell her hello. She has a lot to offer.

Lastly, Garland Girl from Crap Happens Acres. From what I can tell, she just started her blog & it looks like it will be very interesting & entertaining.

Update2: Suzi from Chores and Chandeliers also decided to come join the party. She's a very talented wife & mother we could all learn a lot from.

Thank you all for joining me on my journey.