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)!

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!

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.

Completed log railing and new living room furniture.

New island bar chairs, we finally can sit at the island!

Saved the best for last, this is the walk-in cooler installed, chilled down and ready to go!

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.

Lorrie re-potted her fig tree and one of the local frogs liked it so much he moved in over night.

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.

Big Ass TV

"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.

Need a Miller Lite? Stop by and do some front porch sittin with us, there will be a cold one waiting.

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".

Our main storage units, before all the fun begins.

Our son Danial on the left and his friend Nick, with all the "geranimals" from climate controlled storage.

Up bright and early Wednesday morning to finish un-loading the trucks we drove down before the movers arrived.

First moving truck arrives, no problem.

Second moving truck, not so much......

Second truck getting towed out.

Our solution to getting everything off the second truck and up to the house.

Setting up the log bed in the master bedroom.

A little chaos at this point....

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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Calendar and the bear and some of the other animals up in the loft.

Log bed in the front upstairs bedroom.

Log bed in the master bedroom, finally got to sleep in the house last night :).

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.

Installing the first section of log railing.

Four sections done, looking great.

Installing the first section in the loft area.

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.

Redneck "couch potatoes"

"Camo Gal" is finally in the garage again.