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| First Snow on Farver Acres |
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
First Snow on Farver Acres
Hurricane Sandy has brought us an early snow on Farver Acres. We probably have about an inch and it is still snowing. The higher elevations in WV are supposed to get 2-3 feet just a couple of hours South of here.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
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Monday, October 8, 2012
2012 Hunting Season...So it Begins
We had an awesome time with Sophie, Hans, Brenda and Ray here, they along with Christopher and Lorrie all helped me celebrate my 50th birthday, great time! As much as we loved having our house guests and sure miss them, they know we put hunting season on hold for their visit, something that rarely occurs in the Farver household!
With the deer processing area ready, food plots growing nicely, the hardwood leaves changing their beautiful colors and "fall" temperatures in the air, it was time to take to the woods......
Though we have owned the property since 1999, we never had the equipment to put in food plots, I knew if we did, it would provide us a way to give the local deer herd year round nutrition and to also allow us to harvest the deer we need and keep the herd in balance. It sure paid off...now the story... you know I always have a story.
Lorrie and I had been checking the trail cameras for the past several weeks and were seeing many different bucks of varying sizes (and tons of does), mostly smaller bucks that would get more of our attention in a year or two. However, there was this one deer that got our attention that was showing up at Christopher's stand deep in the woods well before dark, then showing up in the food plot (which is just down the valley from Christopher's stand), still during daylight hours. I decided that was the deer I was going to go after, now I needed a plan. I had to decided, do I go to Christopher's stand or to the food plot. It is quite an up hill hike to Christopher's stand and as hot as it was, I would need to ride an ATV to keep from getting very sweaty. But riding the ATV would make more noise than I really wanted, I wanted to keep the pressure low this early in the season. Lorrie suggested she could take me and drop me off and the deer would hear the ATV come in and then leave and the deer would assume we were gone. Sounded like a good idea but I was concerned with after dark, she would need to come get me and would spook anything around the stand or in the food plot both. I decided to take the most conservative approach, ride the ATV to the lower field below the house, park it there, then walk back to the back food plot (mostly a level 1/4 mile walk). The only issue I might have is when it got dark, if there were deer in the food plot, I would have to wait them out (however long it took) to clear the field so I could leave undetected. The plan was set.
I wrapped up work at 5PM Friday evening and hit the shower, all my hunting gear was ready weeks ago, cloths washed in scent free, bow sighted in, backpack ready, etc. Now "I" was scent free after the shower so I suited up. It was warm (low 70's) so I dressed in my lightest Scentlock Savanah series clothing and un-insulated rubber boots. As planned, I rode to the lower field and started a very slow walk back to the back food plot. As I got closer and the trail opended up where I could see the food plot, something looked different. I stopped and used my binoculars to check it out, there was a smaller buck standing down in the stream bed to the left of the trail and all I could see was his head. I watched him and he climbed up out of the stream bed, ate in the food plot for awhile then dissappeared to the right behind the hunting shack I was heading to. I assumed he was going to keeping going to the right and leave the food plot up into the woods. I waited and again, something caught my attention, I looked with the binoculars again, and he was down in the stream bed again, this time on the right of the trail just below the hunting shack, check out the picture..... click on it to make it larger..... and look dead center......
It gets better......he climbed up out of the stream bed and back into the food plot then walked to the left where I could not see him. I could hear him in the leaves from time to time but I stayed still and just waited him out. Movement caught my attention 15 yards below me to the left, it was him, again down in the stream. He must have been really thirsty and looking for any moisture he could find. There were pretty thick woods between us so he could not see me but I could watch him with binoculars. I was getting impatient, by now since I approached the food plot, 20 minutes or more had gone by. I knew I needed to get into the hunting shack at the edge of the food plot very soon or more deer would likely be coming out and I would never make it there.
I watched the deer and "gave him 5 more minutes" and I was going to keep walking. When he started to close his eyes and fall asleep, I knew there was no better time so I gave up on him not knowing I was there and just started my slow walk to the hunting shack. I have no idea if he saw me or not, he never ran off, never snorted or anything, I just never looked back. By this time it was approaching 6PM. Finally I was in the shack, got settled in, checked everything out to make sure I was ready to go.
About 20 minutes later a mature doe entered the food plot first from just about straight ahead of me, I ranged her at 50 yards. She was followed into the field by what looked like her 1 1/2 year old doe and her 6 month old doe. They all milled around the field eating away for about 15 minutes and wandered up into the woods to the right.
At about 6:40PM I could hear movement in the very dry leaves to my left coming down out of "Poplar Valley". Sure enough, within minutes I could see a smaller buck and then another buck behind it. The smaller buck came down near the food plot and, like a child at a road crossing, he looked left then looked right and then jumped down off the hill into the food plot. The second buck then started forward, I could see it was "him". I couldn't believe it, really.... it never works out that way. They never do what you think they are going to do, but here he was. He dropped down into the food plot and immediately started eating, relaxed as could be. His "buddy" moved all over the food plot, at one point walking right up to a trail camera and actully hitting it with is antler, he then walked within 10 feet of me, down wind. I was expecting him to smell me and start snorting, nothing, he kept going behind me. The big buck kept eating, he was the only deer in the food plot at this point but he was over 40 yards away. He then just picked his head up and started walking in my direction, stopped and put his head down to eat and I ranged him at 22 yards. He turned to my left and kept eating, it was all up to me at that point.
I didn't hesitate for more than 10 seconds, I just waited for his left leg to come forward in alignment with his right leg and the arrow was on its way. I could see I had made a perfect double lung shot. He was gone..... ran up the hill to the left, I could hear some crashing as he went, then silence.
I called Lorrie and told her the news, she couldn't believe it. My first night out of the season and I had only been away from the house for less than 2 hours..... She walked down to the ATV and drove it back to the food plot. In the mean time I had gone looking for my arrow. Sure enough, a complete pass-thru, what every bow hunter wants to see. Lorrie arrived and with Christopher's sooped up SureFire flashlight (I call it the "mombo light", this is just a small fit in your hand flashlight but it drives the LED so bright it actually gets hot after you hold it for awhile...best blood trailing light ever!), we started looking for blood. Not a single drop at point of impact or anywhere in the food plot. About half way up the small hill we finally found the first drop, normally I would be worried with how little blood we were finding but I was very confident in my shot. We would find a drop every 10 feet or so and once we were on top of the hill we hit one of our ATV trails and that's when the blood trail become intense. It entered some very thick briars so I went up the ATV trail and was going to re-enter the woods past the briars, no need, he was laying there 20 feet off the ATV trail!
I have to say, this is the fastest I have ever taken my buck in any deer season so far. Everything came together like I had always dreamed it would once we moved to the property, living the dream!
We field dressed the deer and though challenging, Lorrie and I were able to get him up on the ATV. We took him back to the house and he became the first deer in the game cooler! We placed him there for the night with no worries at all. We used to have to go in to town and get ice to pack the deer to get them chilled down, make sure we had them in a location at camp where the coyotes would not get them, etc, no more!
Saturday first thing we took him in town to check him in and then took some pictures in the daylight, check out how we moved him around, did I say how much I loved my tractor?
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With all the pictures out of the way, I removed the hide. We all decided a few years ago, that we would only mount deer that were "125" or bigger. This means that they needed to have 125 inches of antler as defined by Boone and Crocket. I had measured this deer and he just made it over 125 and especially since he was the first buck taken after moving into the new house, Lorrie and I decided he was getting mounted. We contacted some locals we had gotten to know during the construction process and located a recommended taxidermist, we put the rest of the deer in the walk in cooler and took the cape and head to the taxidermist. He said he was backed up quite a bit from having to take some time away to take care of his elderly father who had fallen and it would likely be a year before I got him back, but we could come get the antlers in a coulple of days to keep them and show them off until he was ready for them. Back from the taxidermist we proceeded to cut up the deer meat, vacuum seal it and get it into the freezer. All in all, we finally finished up completely by about 5PM Saturday!
Now we will see who is next to take a deer this season on Farver Acres, stay tuned.....
With the deer processing area ready, food plots growing nicely, the hardwood leaves changing their beautiful colors and "fall" temperatures in the air, it was time to take to the woods......
Though we have owned the property since 1999, we never had the equipment to put in food plots, I knew if we did, it would provide us a way to give the local deer herd year round nutrition and to also allow us to harvest the deer we need and keep the herd in balance. It sure paid off...now the story... you know I always have a story.
Lorrie and I had been checking the trail cameras for the past several weeks and were seeing many different bucks of varying sizes (and tons of does), mostly smaller bucks that would get more of our attention in a year or two. However, there was this one deer that got our attention that was showing up at Christopher's stand deep in the woods well before dark, then showing up in the food plot (which is just down the valley from Christopher's stand), still during daylight hours. I decided that was the deer I was going to go after, now I needed a plan. I had to decided, do I go to Christopher's stand or to the food plot. It is quite an up hill hike to Christopher's stand and as hot as it was, I would need to ride an ATV to keep from getting very sweaty. But riding the ATV would make more noise than I really wanted, I wanted to keep the pressure low this early in the season. Lorrie suggested she could take me and drop me off and the deer would hear the ATV come in and then leave and the deer would assume we were gone. Sounded like a good idea but I was concerned with after dark, she would need to come get me and would spook anything around the stand or in the food plot both. I decided to take the most conservative approach, ride the ATV to the lower field below the house, park it there, then walk back to the back food plot (mostly a level 1/4 mile walk). The only issue I might have is when it got dark, if there were deer in the food plot, I would have to wait them out (however long it took) to clear the field so I could leave undetected. The plan was set.
I wrapped up work at 5PM Friday evening and hit the shower, all my hunting gear was ready weeks ago, cloths washed in scent free, bow sighted in, backpack ready, etc. Now "I" was scent free after the shower so I suited up. It was warm (low 70's) so I dressed in my lightest Scentlock Savanah series clothing and un-insulated rubber boots. As planned, I rode to the lower field and started a very slow walk back to the back food plot. As I got closer and the trail opended up where I could see the food plot, something looked different. I stopped and used my binoculars to check it out, there was a smaller buck standing down in the stream bed to the left of the trail and all I could see was his head. I watched him and he climbed up out of the stream bed, ate in the food plot for awhile then dissappeared to the right behind the hunting shack I was heading to. I assumed he was going to keeping going to the right and leave the food plot up into the woods. I waited and again, something caught my attention, I looked with the binoculars again, and he was down in the stream bed again, this time on the right of the trail just below the hunting shack, check out the picture..... click on it to make it larger..... and look dead center......
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| Look in the center of the picture, right above the ground, you will see the bucks head/antlers. |
I watched the deer and "gave him 5 more minutes" and I was going to keep walking. When he started to close his eyes and fall asleep, I knew there was no better time so I gave up on him not knowing I was there and just started my slow walk to the hunting shack. I have no idea if he saw me or not, he never ran off, never snorted or anything, I just never looked back. By this time it was approaching 6PM. Finally I was in the shack, got settled in, checked everything out to make sure I was ready to go.
About 20 minutes later a mature doe entered the food plot first from just about straight ahead of me, I ranged her at 50 yards. She was followed into the field by what looked like her 1 1/2 year old doe and her 6 month old doe. They all milled around the field eating away for about 15 minutes and wandered up into the woods to the right.
At about 6:40PM I could hear movement in the very dry leaves to my left coming down out of "Poplar Valley". Sure enough, within minutes I could see a smaller buck and then another buck behind it. The smaller buck came down near the food plot and, like a child at a road crossing, he looked left then looked right and then jumped down off the hill into the food plot. The second buck then started forward, I could see it was "him". I couldn't believe it, really.... it never works out that way. They never do what you think they are going to do, but here he was. He dropped down into the food plot and immediately started eating, relaxed as could be. His "buddy" moved all over the food plot, at one point walking right up to a trail camera and actully hitting it with is antler, he then walked within 10 feet of me, down wind. I was expecting him to smell me and start snorting, nothing, he kept going behind me. The big buck kept eating, he was the only deer in the food plot at this point but he was over 40 yards away. He then just picked his head up and started walking in my direction, stopped and put his head down to eat and I ranged him at 22 yards. He turned to my left and kept eating, it was all up to me at that point.
I didn't hesitate for more than 10 seconds, I just waited for his left leg to come forward in alignment with his right leg and the arrow was on its way. I could see I had made a perfect double lung shot. He was gone..... ran up the hill to the left, I could hear some crashing as he went, then silence.
I called Lorrie and told her the news, she couldn't believe it. My first night out of the season and I had only been away from the house for less than 2 hours..... She walked down to the ATV and drove it back to the food plot. In the mean time I had gone looking for my arrow. Sure enough, a complete pass-thru, what every bow hunter wants to see. Lorrie arrived and with Christopher's sooped up SureFire flashlight (I call it the "mombo light", this is just a small fit in your hand flashlight but it drives the LED so bright it actually gets hot after you hold it for awhile...best blood trailing light ever!), we started looking for blood. Not a single drop at point of impact or anywhere in the food plot. About half way up the small hill we finally found the first drop, normally I would be worried with how little blood we were finding but I was very confident in my shot. We would find a drop every 10 feet or so and once we were on top of the hill we hit one of our ATV trails and that's when the blood trail become intense. It entered some very thick briars so I went up the ATV trail and was going to re-enter the woods past the briars, no need, he was laying there 20 feet off the ATV trail!
I have to say, this is the fastest I have ever taken my buck in any deer season so far. Everything came together like I had always dreamed it would once we moved to the property, living the dream!
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| Living the Dream! |
Saturday first thing we took him in town to check him in and then took some pictures in the daylight, check out how we moved him around, did I say how much I loved my tractor?
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With all the pictures out of the way, I removed the hide. We all decided a few years ago, that we would only mount deer that were "125" or bigger. This means that they needed to have 125 inches of antler as defined by Boone and Crocket. I had measured this deer and he just made it over 125 and especially since he was the first buck taken after moving into the new house, Lorrie and I decided he was getting mounted. We contacted some locals we had gotten to know during the construction process and located a recommended taxidermist, we put the rest of the deer in the walk in cooler and took the cape and head to the taxidermist. He said he was backed up quite a bit from having to take some time away to take care of his elderly father who had fallen and it would likely be a year before I got him back, but we could come get the antlers in a coulple of days to keep them and show them off until he was ready for them. Back from the taxidermist we proceeded to cut up the deer meat, vacuum seal it and get it into the freezer. All in all, we finally finished up completely by about 5PM Saturday!
Now we will see who is next to take a deer this season on Farver Acres, stay tuned.....
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Getting Settled In
All the smaller open items on the house have now been completed, the "house" is pretty much done now. The only real open item to complete is the wood boiler/ radiant floor heating before the colder weather gets here.
The pavilion for the wood boiler/ tractor implements is now 100% done, just need to now spread more gravel under it, first load of that was already delivered today, second one coming later this AM.
The log railing is now 100% complete, looks great and came out the way we wanted it to, a blend of rustic to go with our house theme.
The walk-in game cooler is now installed, chilled and ready for deer & beer! We picked it up on our trailer and Lorrie and I, using pipe to roll it on, removed it from the trailer down into the deer processing area and rolled it into position. We plugged it in and we are good to go! Bow season for deer starts next Saturday, we will see what we can do to put one in the cooler soon.
We purchased our living room furniture, a file cabinet for my office and a stainless steel table for the deer processing area, they coincidentally were all delivered yesterday.
The deer food plots have been prepared, seeded, fertilized and we got a very nice rain early this week so they should be greening up soon. I was also able to finally get some time over the weekend and clear (chain sawed) the ATV trails open that have had down trees all over the place since that big storm this summer that took the power out for 8 days.
Our dear friends Sophie and Hans Klossner & Brenda and Ray Iniquez, along with our two boys Christopher and Danial, are going to be our first house guests, they are all coming next Friday to celebrate my birthday and spend some relaxing time with us, looking forward to sharing our paradise with all of them (and finally a little relaxing)!
The pavilion for the wood boiler/ tractor implements is now 100% done, just need to now spread more gravel under it, first load of that was already delivered today, second one coming later this AM.
The log railing is now 100% complete, looks great and came out the way we wanted it to, a blend of rustic to go with our house theme.
The walk-in game cooler is now installed, chilled and ready for deer & beer! We picked it up on our trailer and Lorrie and I, using pipe to roll it on, removed it from the trailer down into the deer processing area and rolled it into position. We plugged it in and we are good to go! Bow season for deer starts next Saturday, we will see what we can do to put one in the cooler soon.
We purchased our living room furniture, a file cabinet for my office and a stainless steel table for the deer processing area, they coincidentally were all delivered yesterday.
The deer food plots have been prepared, seeded, fertilized and we got a very nice rain early this week so they should be greening up soon. I was also able to finally get some time over the weekend and clear (chain sawed) the ATV trails open that have had down trees all over the place since that big storm this summer that took the power out for 8 days.
Our dear friends Sophie and Hans Klossner & Brenda and Ray Iniquez, along with our two boys Christopher and Danial, are going to be our first house guests, they are all coming next Friday to celebrate my birthday and spend some relaxing time with us, looking forward to sharing our paradise with all of them (and finally a little relaxing)!
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| Wood Boiler sitting in its new home, just need to put the chimney through the roof and this end is all connected and ready to go! |
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| Two sections of deer food plot all tilled, seeded, fertilized and ready for rain. Rain did come as planned so things should be greening up within a week or two. |
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| Completed log railing and new living room furniture. |
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| New island bar chairs, we finally can sit at the island! |
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| Saved the best for last, this is the walk-in cooler installed, chilled down and ready to go! |
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
A Few Updates
We are slowly un-packing, still amazing how much "stuff" we brought that we now wonder why we didn't get rid of it before storing and moving it. In many cases, we needed to see the new house layout and decided if a piece of furniture was needed or not. We have already made a donation and have several more items staged to donate.
We inventoried all the new items needed to complete the house and went shopping on Saturday. We found the reclining couch and double recliner we wanted for the living room and have it on order. We picked out the bar chairs needed for the kitchen island and we pick those up tonight. The "big" exciting news is we bought a 70" LED/LCD TV, had to be big to go with the "big ass...." theme we have going with everything else, LOL. We installed it Saturday night and we were up until 12:45AM watching the Hunger Games on Blue Ray. For those that know us well, that is way too late!
Now that we are here, my attention is slowly starting to turn towards hunting season, my real passion. I borrowed the neighbors 3 bottom plow and plowed up the back food plot Monday night. Have I said how much I like my new tractor? It is awesome, even with a 3 bottom plow, it didn't have any issue tearing up the ground, tree roots, rocks, etc. Then I used my new 6 foot tiller and made a first pass on it last night, amazing how much you can get done in a short period of time with a 6 foot wide tiller and 52HP!
We are sharing some of the most recent nature pictures, something new every day. Oh and every redneck needs a refrigerator on their front porch, check out how I moved the little fridge from the camper to the front porch.
We inventoried all the new items needed to complete the house and went shopping on Saturday. We found the reclining couch and double recliner we wanted for the living room and have it on order. We picked out the bar chairs needed for the kitchen island and we pick those up tonight. The "big" exciting news is we bought a 70" LED/LCD TV, had to be big to go with the "big ass...." theme we have going with everything else, LOL. We installed it Saturday night and we were up until 12:45AM watching the Hunger Games on Blue Ray. For those that know us well, that is way too late!
Now that we are here, my attention is slowly starting to turn towards hunting season, my real passion. I borrowed the neighbors 3 bottom plow and plowed up the back food plot Monday night. Have I said how much I like my new tractor? It is awesome, even with a 3 bottom plow, it didn't have any issue tearing up the ground, tree roots, rocks, etc. Then I used my new 6 foot tiller and made a first pass on it last night, amazing how much you can get done in a short period of time with a 6 foot wide tiller and 52HP!
We are sharing some of the most recent nature pictures, something new every day. Oh and every redneck needs a refrigerator on their front porch, check out how I moved the little fridge from the camper to the front porch.
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| Lorrie re-potted her fig tree and one of the local frogs liked it so much he moved in over night. |
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| The deer come in to drink from the pond pretty much daily. Especially this year with it being so hot and dry, the pond has become a haven for wildlife, the deer, turkey, squirrels, birds, etc all come for a drink. |
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| Big Ass TV |
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| "Farmer John" so to speak.... using the plow to prepare the back food plot for the first time. This picture is only the smaller side of the food plot, the other side is larger. |
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| Need a Miller Lite? Stop by and do some front porch sittin with us, there will be a cold one waiting. |
Friday, September 7, 2012
Our Moving "Adventure"
We are moved in, at least I should say everything we own is now moved to the new place, many weeks ahead un-packing and actually "moving in". The move actually went fairly smooth, until the "last" truck to come up the driveway for this entire project did not make it, more on that in a minute.
We drove to NE Ohio on Monday afternoon (Labor Day), stayed at Christopher's apartment Monday night and we were at Penske at 7AM Tuesday morning. We rented a 16' Penske truck ourselves to transport everything out of climate controlled storage. We then went to storage and the moving company met us there about 9:30AM. They brought two 26' trucks and backed each one up to our two main storage units and each truck had two guys, total of four guys.
Danial and his friend Nick came to help and we loaded everything out of climate control into the Penske and also loaded my pick-up truck and our 16' trailer with items the movers couldn't transport, such as propane tanks, acetylene tanks, paints, etc. Danial, Nick and I then went to Christopher's apartment and moved everything out of our freezer that has been in his garage into coolers, loaded the freezer into the Penske and also loaded other items from the apartment.
The movers completed loading everything else into the two trucks and were done by about 2PM. Lorrie then came to the apartment and we headed South, me driving the Penske and Lorrie driving the pick-up with the 16' trailer behind it. We arrived around 7PM, immediately un-loaded the freezer into the deer processing area, got it plugged in and un-loaded all the coolers of frozen food back into it., relaxed a bit and slept in the camper, with full intentions of sleeping the next night in the house.
Wednesday morning Lorrie and I were up early and we un-loaded the rest of the Penske truck except the gun safe and un-loaded my truck/ trailer. The movers arrived at 11AM. The first truck drove back and up the hill no problem at all, then we were waiting on the second truck, nothing...... then we hear "beep, beep, beep" like the truck was backing up. By the time I got over there to see what was going on, the guy had backed down the hill and off the side of the driveway into the ditch and was stuck........placed a call to the local towing business for large trucks (I am familiar with them, they've been here before......) and then all four guys started un-loading the first truck.
The tow truck comes an hour later, pulls him out really with no problem. We all agreed, have the driver of the first truck, drive the second truck up the hill. He also got about half way up the hill and just like the fist time, the truck just did not have enough power to get up the hill. It just stopped. They backed it down safely this time, then planned to pull forward into a side road I have at the bottom of the hill, and guess what, the truck had no forward gears, it would only go backwards..... are we having fun yet?
Ok, I'll speed up here, we ended up backing the truck all the way out, then taking the Penske truck down and backed them up back to back and they un-loaded everything from the bigger truck into the Penske over two trips and driving the Penske up the hill, no issues.
By about 6PM, they were done, the second truck had been towed to the local garage and they were all four crammed into the first truck and on their way back to NE Ohio. Lorrie and I immediately took off in the Penkse and her truck heading to Hurricane, WV to return the Penske, a one hour drive each way. By the time we got back from returning it. it was nearly 10PM, we just headed back to the camper and went to sleep.
We spent the day yesterday focusing on the bedrooms, master bathroom and my office and we finally spent our first night in the house last night. I had another 20 ton load of gravel delivered last night for up around the house/ pavilion (funny, he had no problem getting up the hill.....). I am heading out to start moving that around, Lorrie will continue in the house the slow not so enjoyable process of un-packing....... so goes our moving "adventure".
We drove to NE Ohio on Monday afternoon (Labor Day), stayed at Christopher's apartment Monday night and we were at Penske at 7AM Tuesday morning. We rented a 16' Penske truck ourselves to transport everything out of climate controlled storage. We then went to storage and the moving company met us there about 9:30AM. They brought two 26' trucks and backed each one up to our two main storage units and each truck had two guys, total of four guys.
Danial and his friend Nick came to help and we loaded everything out of climate control into the Penske and also loaded my pick-up truck and our 16' trailer with items the movers couldn't transport, such as propane tanks, acetylene tanks, paints, etc. Danial, Nick and I then went to Christopher's apartment and moved everything out of our freezer that has been in his garage into coolers, loaded the freezer into the Penske and also loaded other items from the apartment.
The movers completed loading everything else into the two trucks and were done by about 2PM. Lorrie then came to the apartment and we headed South, me driving the Penske and Lorrie driving the pick-up with the 16' trailer behind it. We arrived around 7PM, immediately un-loaded the freezer into the deer processing area, got it plugged in and un-loaded all the coolers of frozen food back into it., relaxed a bit and slept in the camper, with full intentions of sleeping the next night in the house.
Wednesday morning Lorrie and I were up early and we un-loaded the rest of the Penske truck except the gun safe and un-loaded my truck/ trailer. The movers arrived at 11AM. The first truck drove back and up the hill no problem at all, then we were waiting on the second truck, nothing...... then we hear "beep, beep, beep" like the truck was backing up. By the time I got over there to see what was going on, the guy had backed down the hill and off the side of the driveway into the ditch and was stuck........placed a call to the local towing business for large trucks (I am familiar with them, they've been here before......) and then all four guys started un-loading the first truck.
The tow truck comes an hour later, pulls him out really with no problem. We all agreed, have the driver of the first truck, drive the second truck up the hill. He also got about half way up the hill and just like the fist time, the truck just did not have enough power to get up the hill. It just stopped. They backed it down safely this time, then planned to pull forward into a side road I have at the bottom of the hill, and guess what, the truck had no forward gears, it would only go backwards..... are we having fun yet?
Ok, I'll speed up here, we ended up backing the truck all the way out, then taking the Penske truck down and backed them up back to back and they un-loaded everything from the bigger truck into the Penske over two trips and driving the Penske up the hill, no issues.
By about 6PM, they were done, the second truck had been towed to the local garage and they were all four crammed into the first truck and on their way back to NE Ohio. Lorrie and I immediately took off in the Penkse and her truck heading to Hurricane, WV to return the Penske, a one hour drive each way. By the time we got back from returning it. it was nearly 10PM, we just headed back to the camper and went to sleep.
We spent the day yesterday focusing on the bedrooms, master bathroom and my office and we finally spent our first night in the house last night. I had another 20 ton load of gravel delivered last night for up around the house/ pavilion (funny, he had no problem getting up the hill.....). I am heading out to start moving that around, Lorrie will continue in the house the slow not so enjoyable process of un-packing....... so goes our moving "adventure".
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| Our main storage units, before all the fun begins. |
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| Our son Danial on the left and his friend Nick, with all the "geranimals" from climate controlled storage. |
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| Up bright and early Wednesday morning to finish un-loading the trucks we drove down before the movers arrived. |
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| First moving truck arrives, no problem. |
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| Second moving truck, not so much...... |
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| Second truck getting towed out. |
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| Our solution to getting everything off the second truck and up to the house. |
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| Setting up the log bed in the master bedroom. |
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| A little chaos at this point.... |
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| Our Good Luck Cricket from our dear friends Hans and Sophie Klossner, we had placed it in a location that we could find it quickly after the move and put it out. See next picture for the story. |
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| Add caption |
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| Calendar and the bear and some of the other animals up in the loft. |
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| Log bed in the front upstairs bedroom. |
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| Log bed in the master bedroom, finally got to sleep in the house last night :). |
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Log Railing
I picked up the Amishman and his sons that are doing the log railing at 6AM yesterday morning and brought them to the house. This is a different group than the ones who built the house. They were able to install the straight portions of the railing and took some final measurements for the 37 degree down angle pieces needed to make the railing on the side of the stairs.
We finally got some rain! It hasn't rained in weeks and I am sure it has been more than a month since we even had a light rain. Hurricane Isaac brought us rain yesterday and the remnants are still headed our way and promise to give us more rain today and possibly over the next couple of days.
Christopher came down for the holiday/ pre-move-in weekend and we spent most of yesterday just doing some smaller odds and ends jobs around the house in preparation for moving in.
Since I was able to get gravel up around the house on Friday, Lorrie was able to finally park "Camo Gal", her Suburban, in the garage for the first time. We don't have any TV's yet but I did take the monitor off of the video security system and Christopher and I explored DirectTV for the first time.
We finally got some rain! It hasn't rained in weeks and I am sure it has been more than a month since we even had a light rain. Hurricane Isaac brought us rain yesterday and the remnants are still headed our way and promise to give us more rain today and possibly over the next couple of days.
Christopher came down for the holiday/ pre-move-in weekend and we spent most of yesterday just doing some smaller odds and ends jobs around the house in preparation for moving in.
Since I was able to get gravel up around the house on Friday, Lorrie was able to finally park "Camo Gal", her Suburban, in the garage for the first time. We don't have any TV's yet but I did take the monitor off of the video security system and Christopher and I explored DirectTV for the first time.
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| Installing the first section of log railing. |
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| Four sections done, looking great. |
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| Installing the first section in the loft area. |
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| This fawn browsed through right off the front porch. It is maybe 50 feet between the front porch and the pond, she came right through exploring. |
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| Redneck "couch potatoes" |
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| "Camo Gal" is finally in the garage again. |
Friday, August 31, 2012
One More Major Item to Go!
The kitchen counter is installed and the alarm and video system is installed. Gravel continues to be delivered and the log railing will be partially installed on Saturday.
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| Bringing in the granite island top, they said this slab weighs 700 lbs, not sure about that but it is heavy! |
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| Completed kitchen counter top, looks great. |
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| View of counter top on left end towards dining room. |
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| Another view between stove/ refrigerator. |
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| Close-up of the granite, it really blends well with the cabinets and the wall colors, it is called "Santa Silvia". Great job Lorrie picking out everything to match so well! |
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| If you ever come to visit, remember, I will have you on video, in color even! |
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| More gravel, I lost track of how much gravel we have put in the driveway and around the house after 700 tons..... |
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The List is Even Shorter
Largely we just have the kitchen counter top, the alarm/video system and the log railing to go. The kitchen counter top and the alarm system are being installed today. The amishman building the log railing called and his machine has a broken part so it may not get done before move-in, we will see today/tomorrow. We are also getting some of our final gravel for around the house, one load was delivered and drop spread yesterday, more today and tomorrow. Then I am off tomorrow and will spread/level all the gravel and bring it up to the level of all the garage doors so we can use them to move in next week.
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| Lorrie's Redneck cloths line on the side porch. |
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| Must be getting close to moving in, starting to put new furniture on the front porch. You know where our priorities are, we have no furniture in the house but we do have it on the front porch! |
Monday, August 27, 2012
Beam Me Up Scotty
We now have Hughes Net for Internet and DirectTV for television. They were installed today. Too bad we don't have any TV's or a wireless router to take advantage of them. They actually had to bring a TV with them just so they could make sure everything was programmed and working, LOL!
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| This is sorta "nerve central" out front, we have the water hydrant on the far left, the Hughes dish on the left, the conduit back to the house in the middle, the DirectTV dish on the right, then the "man hole" that has a water shut-off valve and the telephone connections in it and on the far right, is the sewage system, looks like a submarine. |
A Time of Firsts
We realized we were doing many things for the first time in the house so we thought we would share some.
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| First load of laundry. |
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| First items in the refrigerator. |
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| First item in the kitchen cabinets. |
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| First....well you get the idea. |
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| First meal prepared in the kitchen (countertop comes Thursday). |
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| First shower in the hall bathroom! |
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