WOW!!!

Ben gave me his shed

Ben, a good friend of mine told me that he had a shed that he no longer needed and I could have it if I wanted it. I had been looking for some form of storage at the land to hold supplies and he knew this. I went and looked at the shed, measured it and lifted one corner. Deciding that it would fit it on my sled trailer I made my plans to load it. The shed was on skids so the plan was to use a come along to winch it onto the trailer. It was a little work but it went really well. When I got it to the land I tied it to the steel frame, tilted the bed of the trailer and drove out from under it.









Ready to hit the road.



My Future Wood Shed

This spring the company that I work for decided to purchase a large CNC lathe. When it got delivered it was in a large crate made of 1"x1" steel tube with 2"x4" steel tube floor. It was 21'x10'x10'. When I measured the crate I instantly though "wood shed". Those dimensions will hold roughly 16 cords of stacked split and drying fire wood. I talked to the owner of the company and he told me that if I thought that I could haul it I could have it. It saved him from haveing to pay someones labor to cut it up for scrap.

The crate in the parking lot at work.

The plan will be to put a clear roof on it so I get a green house effect and canvas sides so that I can roll them up when the drying will be good. The challenge came when we were ready to move it. Laying down this is considered a wide load. So we had to stand it up. This was not to hard at my work due to the use of a fork lift but I was not so sure how we were going to unload it at the land.

A.J and Nathan holding the floor pannel from swinging while I drove the fork lift.

Ready to roll. I hope?

 Long story short we traveled slow and drove carefully and got to the land (about 50 miles) without trouble. At the land we untied the pieces and pushed it off the trailer. There was some stressfull moments but it went well.

Floor and side pannels ready to be bolted together.

This is how they will sit untill the fall.

Later A.J.(different A.J. than help load) and the boys helped me bolt the pieces back together and that is as far as I am planning on going with this project for now.

Digging Frost Footings

This far North in Minnesota it is recommended that you place your footings at a depth of 60" to stay below the frost line. Since the house will have a 6' high berm around three sides we only had to dig the front and 13' of each side to frost depth.

 The beggining of the day.

 The bucket is 3 feet wide.

Caleb in the trench (note the water seeping out at about the 48" deep line. This seems to never stop)

Caleb getting the ground water to run to the sump hole that we dig so that we could pump it out.

Ready to start building forms.

Breaking Gound

Two days ago (Friday April 29th) we finaly got to break ground on our new home. My friend Nathan brought his skidsteer over and started digging. The ground here is very heavy so there was some issue with getting through the sod but once he did it went slow but well.

Setting up the optical level for the grade that I wanted.

My friend Nathan.

The house site before the dig.






Part way through the dig we tried to push this old tree snag out of the ground with no success. So I started digging around the roots so I could cut them with a chain saw.


Just gitting started and the tree that has to be removed.



Tree roots dug out and cut.

About this time Vern showed up to see how it was going ( I had talked to him earlier that morning and he had mentioned that he was going to stop by) and offered to help with the shoveling around the roots. We dug for a while and cut as many roots as we could and tried to push the tree again with the skid steer. It was a no go. Then Vern offered to go get his back hoe since he only lives 1 1/2 miles away (Vern owns a septic company) and use it to remove the tree.



 

Well after seeing the ease that the backhoe had removing the tree and the fact that it was getting later in the day I decided to have Vern just finish digging the site. It went really well and he was real nice to me for price so he will be doing all of my digging in the future.

 

Vern digging the North East corner of our site.



 

All done.





Cole's new bed

The old

The new hot rod bed

We have come to the decision that Cole has grown out of his crib and needs a toddler bed. Then one day at church Sarah had mentioned that we needed a toddler bed and one of our friends had a Little Tikes race car bed that we could have for free. Since the price was right that is what we went for. So yesterday I took  the truck and picked it up. Today after church we washed it up ( all the kids and myself ) and got it ready for nap time. So as I write this post he is trying to overcome the excitement of a new bed and go to sleep.

Just to excited to sleep

P.S. Hes finally out.

Unpatiently waiting for spring

Yesterday I went to the land and had a look. We have had a week of above freezing temps and I wanted to see if the South side of the hill was clearing of snow. It has not. There was at least a couple of feet left to go. I did find out that the house next to our land that has been vacant has sold. I wonder what they will be like. I also decided to move the approach to the property to the west edge to allow the north hay field to stay one piece and not be divided by a driveway.