Excavation Day 1

Day 1 excavation progress!  Their start date got pushed to today, rather than yesterday.  It looks a lot different already.  Surprised to see soil like a sandy beach just a few feet down.

Almost Finished with Clearing

Mason and I checked the progress this evening.  They're on schedule to finish clearing tomorrow and excavation will begin early next week.  There's a lot of grading needed, so we're excited to see how the site will look once they start moving dirt around.  We'll meet the builder on-site in the next few days to stake out the house location.

Surprise Visit

We had a very special surprise visit from Kel and Greg today.  We were headed to the land anyway so we got to show them the progress.  Paul amd Mari came by too so we had 4 of 6 grandparents visit today (with masks of course).   

The clearing guys actually showed up while we were there so we watched them work for a while.  They seem to be focused on hauling out branches and tearing out stumps.  It's looking a lot clearer.

If we're still on track with the timeline Matt laid out, they should finish the clearing this week and excavation should begin shortly after.  

The Chaos is Becoming More Organized

The clearing guys have done a great job keeping things tidy during clearing, but there's only so much you can do.  So it looked like a bomb landed on our property for a few days.  Now we can start to see a glimpse of what it will look like when they're done.  They've removed quite a few stumps, finished dropping trees, and a lot of logs and debris have been removed.  We had a big wind storm come through this week and several trees and large branches came down.  Luckily they are going to clean it up for us,  so the timing was actually great.  

We LOVE how the clearing is turning out.  The building site is still private from the road.  The driveway winds through the trees,  then opens up into a beautiful clearing surrounded by cedars.  It's just what we wanted.  

Day 2 Progress

The tree pile is getting bigger!  Our visit to the land happened to overlap with the builder's visit, so we had a quick meeting to discuss the initial clearing, rough house location, and what else needs to come down.  There will be quite a few big firs coming down tomorrow that are too close to the house.  Hoping to show up at the right time so we can watch one fall.  

The more progress they make the easier it is to picture where the house will sit.  And some if this clearing will expose the beautiful cedars hidden behind the scrappy trees.

It's Started!

Clearing Begins Tomorrow!

The clearing guys will be there tomorrow morning.  Cutting should start around 9AM.  I want to watch...and I don't.  We bought this beautiful wooded property and we're about to cut a big hold right in the middle of it!  But someone was going to develop it eventually and at least we're giving it serious thought and keeping what we can.  Overall I'm really excited we're finally getting started.  We closed on the property almost 13 months ago, so more than ready to see some actual progress on-site after all this planning and paperwork.  

We heard the old well removal went as smooth as it could have, so best case scenario really.  And the builder had the first "inspection" which is really a pre-construction meeting on-site to go over things.  Matt said it went well.  We're off to a good start.

The kids have writing school tomorrow morning so we won't be there for the very first cut, but we might sneak over during lunch and take a quick look.  Next post will be pics from the first day of clearing! 

Plant Rescue

We couldn't wrap our heads around bulldozing hundreds of native plants in the building envelope, then buying hundreds of native plants to re-plant the well road.  So, even though it's August and the worst possible time to move plants, we boight a bunch of nursery pots and went for it.  

Grandma Betty used her connections to get us an excavator which made digging so much easier.  This is the first time Mason and Viv have been allowed to operate solo, and I couldn't get them off the thing.  They did a great job sharing with each other, but I was having a hard time getting a turn!  

The ferns seem okay after the move.  Not sure about anything else, but they would have died anyway so we had to try.