Day 203, 208, 209 - Deliveries
1 Video View·Jul 15, 2025
A tweaked neck has slowed me down considerably since mid-October. It's the morning of November 7, and as I type this, the neck situation is finally resolving itself. I'm feeling much better and getting antsy about big progress being made.
The shop materials have been delivered. However, we've exited our second drought of the summer months and are now at the beginning of our usually wet fall and winter. Rain delays have already pushed the shop assembly back by a week and a half. I find myself deliberately focusing on patience. Patience is what I need right now.
Jamie and partially I have gone down the permaculture rabbit hole. We are starting on the cleared strip to the left of the driveway for soil building and flower seeding. This area will be a pollinator garden come spring. We likely won't have much structure in this area. Just a small meadow of wildflowers.
I'm also becoming a big fan of concrete washout. As the name implies, it is the material washed out of concrete trucks after they return from a job, especially when too much material is ordered. I'm using more of it to extend the driveway into the clearing and up to the shop door. I'll continue getting more of this to wrap the driveway around the back of the shop, under the lean-to, and anywhere else we seem to be driving the most. The price changes due to delivery methods and the volume purchased, but I'm averaging around $10 per yard delivered. That's not too shabby, in my opinion.
Email: [email protected]
Today is Monday, October 28th, the day that we were supposed to start in on the
shop. Well, it was either today or the following Monday and I've got no
confirmation either way so I'm just assuming the following Monday because it
is 1 p.m. out here on the property. No building delivered, no materials
delivered, no tools being staged. So I wasn't planning on doing hardly
anything today because I messed up my neck real bad about 10 days ago. My
birthday was October 17th and what I wanted to do for my birthday was tractor
time. So I spent about three hours box plating and anyone who has a tractor or
used a tractor and understands you that you have to look behind you for your all
your three-point stuff. So I was constantly, oh it hurts so bad, constantly turned
around for about three hours and not only am I turned around this way because
my the three-point elevation handle is on my right side so I got to use this so
I can't turn the other way and still easily access the three-point. So I'm
turning this way messing with the three-point and then of course my left
hand is over here using the steering wheel so I'm completely stretched out
and stressing some muscles while I'm at it and I paid for it. I hope I didn't do
anything major damage wise but here we are ten days later and I still have
reduced range of motion in my neck. When I wake up I'm cold right not like
physically cold but your muscles are they're cold they haven't been doing
anything you're not warmed up. So when I wake up it is absolutely miserable
yesterday was so bad I was I was boo-hoo and I was crying I had to step out of
the camper and do some you know some range of motion stuff and just try and
just grit through it and man it hurt I haven't had that much pain in a while so
that's really holding me back right now and the more I move around and get my
heart rate up a little bit get my body temperature working you know get them
get the muscles working a little bit loosed up loosened up it it's a lot
better but you always have that one one movement we're like oh hello oh my gosh
right so I'm trying to do light-duty stuff yesterday I did not do light-duty
stuff and yesterday we took down a bunch of trees as you just saw in the last
video and I was kind of forced to do that by my own self because as I said a
million times by now I repeat myself a lot it seems like I was forced to take
these down because beetles are killing all the pines on the property and I
didn't realize that until recently so anyway I worked harder than I wanted to
yesterday due to my neck but had to get done today waking up this morning wasn't
as bad as yesterday morning yesterday morning was was intense that hurt so bad
but I just took a 45 minute walk through the trails I'm telling you guys if you
live in a city you don't understand how beneficial it is how therapeutic it is
how it just makes you feel better regardless of what mood you're in
regardless of how you feel you just feel better I do anyway everyone I know does
anyway walking through nature just walk through nature you don't even have to
touch stuff although hug a tree all right grab a stick take your shoes off
get grounded it may just feel so much better an hour ago I was moping around
just trying to get started after this hour walk I'm like okay I'm ready to do
some work it's insane feels so much better especially on a day like today
it's like 85 degrees there's a breeze and the majority of the trail was shaded
oh man sign me up for that right anyway I can't sit still number one that's why
I'm pacing number two what I think I am gonna do because it's because it's a
keep here I'm expecting material to be delivered so any type of little noise
I'm like oh it's them and it's not so what I'm gonna do which is kind of sort
of lightweight work is I'm gonna offload this trailer I didn't even bring any my
camera gear today because I was like this is gonna be a miserable day I'm not
gonna record anything walk through nature feel better this is a load of
pine that was cut a while ago but this is pine from the property so the
gentleman who we gave all these burnt logs to we just gave them to him he's a
pastor at our church and one of his sons runs a sawmill and they're using a bunch
of this lumber to fix up their house I believe that's what's going on and I
don't want to sit here and rot away so he gets it well he showed up with this
trailer and said here's some lumber okay that's pretty cool I don't have any
immediate need or use for this stuff right this second and it's all already
twisted and bowed and all this kind of stuff so I think I'm just gonna use the
pallet forks offload it set it somewhere semi-flat and then I can use this for
rough stuff around the property like once we get the upcoming sawmill over
here to mill all this fresh downed stuff I can use some of these eight quarter
pieces to cut up into shorter lengths and level out on the ground so once I
have two pieces that are leveled one another I can start stacking a whole
bunk on top of that so much more work to do here but that's
okay today's a good day because that right there is my shop that's my shop
12 by 12 there's your roll-up door which this exterior piece I think is just a
cover I don't think that's yeah it's not the door itself that's just part of the
gonna put it I need to sell a kidney and get one of those that looks like it's
that would be really really handy on this property really really handy also
really really expensive I don't know how much they are but they look expensive I
took a picture of the tag on it it says it can rate says it can lift 5,500
pounds which is a considerable amount my tractor can lift 2,200 pounds and I
think that's a considerable amount the tire keeps going low so I've got a 12
volt battery 12 volt air compressor over here there's the last of the shop being
unloaded got the rest of it over there stage and I am staging lumber is
something that I'm gonna have to work on out here I have to really flatten out
some areas to put some cross ties on and you know have some reference points that
are good for staging material after it comes off the sawmill speaking of after
it comes off I believe that was the last thing to come off of the trailer for the
shop all the shop materials are right there right there right there right
there right there oh there's more over there doesn't look like a shop yet I
think it's missing something oh that's right assembly that's right
no assembly included I'm trying to make some type of sense out of this pile it's
about half 8 quarter half 4 quarter and it's about half really really good and
about half just junk not really junk but you know like not furniture grade by any
means so utility stuff stuff around the homestead so none of its waste wasteful
at all by any means but I'm not set up to stage lumber just yet so this load
was unexpected and appreciated but yeah I'm slowing down my neck is
just mainly check a couple things this is the first time we've driven on the
driveway after a rain so yay we can access the property after a rain it's no
longer this muddy muck so we've got three different surfaces here this is an
interesting comparison this is the original soil on the property or dirt I
guess you could say clay this stuff will ball up your tires and you'll sit there
and just spin in one spot not go anywhere this stuff is sticky this is
the concrete washout now when I say this stuff is sticky you can't step on this
without leaving a print on your shoe now my boots don't have mud all over them and
I want to keep it that way so I'm not gonna step on this but this concrete
washout you can step on this all you want and it's not gonna get stuck to the
bottom of your boots so I think the concrete washout is a big win and of
course we all know gravel here so these three layers is our entire driveway I
like this concrete washout stuff so many people said that it just washes away
well we don't have any major slopes to worry about right here especially not
here in this clearing area so we need to get more of this I mean I parked the
Jeep on it drove this back and forth a couple times just to see if I'm leaving
any tire tracks and I'm not so that right there tells you it's not gonna
pack in it is packed in it's not gonna come up on the bottom of your boots now
when this is dry this stuff gets pretty dusty and then your boots will track in
you know that those white powdery footprints everywhere that being said I
need to see what we got puddles I mentioned this in a previous video where
this drains off into this puddle and I need to grab some of this material and
keep pulling it this way and and feather this slope up up to the slab there's
plenty enough material here to do so and upon doing that all of this material
that I'm gonna pull up over here will create a small swale or a ditch I guess
you could say to get the water that way because this is the original four-wheeler
trail that ran through the property right over there was the original trail
so it's already sunk down a little bit and it's already kind of the two ruts
are kind of acting like a ditch kind of as it is so we're gonna maintain that
function and get the water out of this clearing all the runoff anyway once we
get some real good soil established here a good root system we'll be able to
absorb a lot more but right now we're just mainly running off everything so
anyway the shop was delivered we tarped the insulation and all the small stuff
that small boxes of stuff that they ordered just waiting on well a little
bit dry weather to get started I'm a little concerned about this being just
straight-up gumbo as the concrete guy said it's gonna be sticky and soft and
muddy while they work unfortunately I was hoping to get all this pulled up so
we wouldn't have this water staining issue but the box blade that I borrowed
which is under my grapple right there doesn't have any ripper rippers in it so
I can't really dig into the soil and move much but I've got one on the way so
when I get around to that I should be able to do that I wanted to get the
water see that water out right there with a green glove I still have to
trench the side of the shop and connect it to my trench right here just have to
connect the dots but I haven't done that we knocked a bunch of these trees down
right before the rain which was great I haven't taken the time to cut these up
any further and then my wife is probably already gone she's way down there she's
doing some compost and soil building I'm gonna stop and pick up over there at her
area now that I'm all out of breath I just we just ran up here and I won
because I'm faster than you no I won but if I was really trying then I would
have won I wasn't trying you actually won all right so she won all right let's
go over here why was I not trying well it's kind of hard to run in jeans and
boots just to be honest with you that's my story and I'm sticking to it okay she
is light little excuse me layering all this with cardboard we found a few free
cardboard sources in town so old boxes and whatnot and this is some of the
wood chips that we've chopped up on the property as a matter of fact all of
these chips are from about six four not six five four or five months ago we
chipped these on the other side of the clearing and I brought them over here
and phones not let me zoom in I don't know why but you can see over here this
side is much darker than this side right so this side is the old stuff that was
five months or so ago and it's starting starting to brown up really really nice
this stuff is one scoop on the top just one scoop on the top of the pines that
we just mulched the other day so breaking down quite a bit my wife is
going down the permaculture rabbit hole and this whole side over here of the
driveway will be pollinators I think also probably with pumpkin seeds because
she's about to bust this open and spread it out and let it compost but yeah just
a lazy family day on the property enjoying not being busy good days
listening to listening to the six-year-old voice echo through the
woods and I love it oh yeah I cannot wait but I will I cannot wait the shop
to be built and we're up here every single day paradise so Tyler K is
learning how to use a machete by chopping up a pumpkin into just a
little compost area she was hesitant at first but it's okay to do dangerous
things carefully you having fun yeah yeah so this is her second pumpkin she
chopped up the first one and got excited that oh yeah there's another one on the
property so she ran back there and she wanted to chop it so she had to carry it
from way over is it good or you still need to go a little bit more you still
need to chop it up smaller remember always try and chop the biggest one in
half keep moving whatever is the biggest one for every every swing chop that one
in half there you go oh you're gonna make it powder man about to break out
the Titanic meme it's been 84 years did you just snort on camera there you go a
six-year-old with a machete dad quoting Titanic and a wife snorting lovely
piles of concrete washout delivered and as you can see over there this is this
is a mucky muck mess that I need to start spreading this out and and get it
to where you can pack this down and drive on it this washout is right here
you can see the difference washout gravel the original dirt this you can
drive on this none of it sticks to your tires it's just fantastic I am a believer
in this concrete washout stuff which is pretty darn cheap pretty darn cheap
delivered if the price kind of changes every time but delivered cost I'm
averaging is about $10 a yard delivered which I don't think that's bad at all
where we at? We're under a little... We're in a movie theater like fake. I just made it up.
We made a movie theater all the dolls yeah at the movie theater with us
watching spook kids watching spook kids