Two plus years have rolled by since buying this 10 acre lot in High Meadows. One of the stipulations at closing was to have an access road put in to the property. I was really concerned as I have ridded myself of the Jeep from Hell and the new Edge does not have 4 wheel drive. Amazingly enough, a road miraculously appeared about a week ago. It's not much, but gets the job done! Gratuitous pictures of my new chariot included...

It's early October and you can already tell Fall is fast approaching by the cool (under 80) days and even cooler (in the 50's) nights. Some friends of mine had asked "what is the view from your cabin like?", so I decided last weekend to take some new pictures from the deck/porch and around the grounds.

 

The north side of the cabin has changed dramatically since last year after cutting out a lot of trees and putting in the other half of the circle drive. Stephan and I spend the better part of a month installing lattice below the porch, and all that remains is the gate under the deck to access the propane tank. The current project is now to stain everything. Dad got a good start on the lattice, and it's made a lot of difference.

 

So there you go... another album with views from almost every direction so you can see the surroundings. Enjoy!

Mom and Dad put up a thistle feeder a couple of months ago. Since they went back to Florida, I have been refilling the thing, but never saw what had such a voracious appetite. Yesterday, I was out on the deck enjoying another perfect day in the mountains when I happened to spy the critter out of the corner of my eye. I ran inside and grabbed my camera to snag a few pictures.

After a year and a half of leaking doors on the window wall had taken its toll on the hardwood floor, it is finally being replaced. The flooring guy and his helper were out yesterday (yes, on Memorial Day) to tear up all of the old flooring. That means Stephan and I had the dubious task of removing all of the furniture from the Great Room and Dining Room. They managed to get just about all of the old floor torn up, but needed to get more blades for the saw to complete the work. The plan was to pick up the new flooring material this morning and have everything finished today. Luckily, when the flooring and felt was removed we were able to see that the subfloor was still intact (albeit a huge water stain was present). The stain reached into the room about the same distance as the 12' crack in the drywall ceiling in the Home Theater below. Once the flooring is replaced, the drywall crew is supposed to come out and repair that along with the remaining items on the punch list. It will be nice to finally get this saga behind us.

Came up on 5/6 and discovered our neighbors had been doing a little Spring landscaping! The first several pictures in this album are of the 4 purple Rhododendrons they planted on the edge of their lawn between our lots. Since Mom just LOVES Rhododendrons, I decided to buy her a couple for Mother's Day. I picked up a purple one (most common on the Blue Ridge Parkway about a half-mile away), and a beautiful red variety called Lord Robert's. Stephan and I picked a couple of spots off the front porch with indirect sun and shade, and planted them. We haven't had any rain for quite a while, so we were quite happy this last weekend to find the plants thriving in their new habitat.

I have been taking pictures, but haven't had the time to download and post them.

 

Here are a bunch from the month of May. As you can see, we've been busy with your usual Spring-time activities:

I have some pictures of the oak saplings I uncovered while cleaning out the north side of the cabin. Most survived the winter and each week brings more leaves. There was also a large maple on the north side obscured by pines, locust, and all manner of undergrowth. When I cleard this area last year for the second half of the circle drive, I came across this one.

 

I also have pictures of the smaller maple on the south side of the cabin. This one had the top snapped off a couple summers ago, and we weren't sure if it was going to make it or not. Lots of new growth this year. The wild cherry trees are starting to fill in as well. It's amazing what happens when they get some sunlight!

Finally! A beautiful weekend. Time to break out the lawn mower and weed whacker. The grass has turned green again and was in dire need of a haircut.  Still working on getting rid of the stump that currently occupies what will eventually be the firepit.  We're also trimming the bare limbs off the lower part of the pines. We're also cleaning up the branches that cover the ground outside of the lawn. There is a lot of work to do, but we're attacking it a little bit at a time.

Yet another storm front with some serious winds took down a bunch of trees in the neighborhood. Took some pics of the one it uprooted on the north side of the house. All the more reason to have a couple more pine trees close to the house removed.

I was at the cabin a couple of weeks ago forSpring Break. As luck (?) would have it, a storm front moved through and dropped a bunch of snow. Needless to say, we didn't get a lot of Spring activites done during those 4 days...

 

Took these pictures for Bill who can't get enough snow in the Carolinas.

The only drawback to taking all the pictures is that I never end up in one! I downloaded pictures from Dad's camera tonight and found one of me on the new toy...

 

 

My nieces Christie and Mandy, and their friend Ashley spent a week of their summer vacation at the cabin. They helped clean up the grounds by gathering branches and chopping roots. Later on, they celebrated with a little campfire and some Smores. It's so nice to have a little help around the house!

 

Thanks girls!

What a weekend! I am sore and sunburnt, but we got a lot accomplished. Went out Saturday and bought a lawn tractor. I have been researching various products for a while now, and had narrowed the choice down to Cub Cadet and Husqvarna. Since I have been very happy with my Husky chainsaw, they had the edge going in. I read a lot of reviews and finally found a forum at http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=37.

 

I settled on the LT1045SE which is a 46" cut (3-blades) tractor with a V-Twin Kohler Courage motor. It was delivered Saturday morning, and by Sunday evening I had run it through the guantlet. It took no time at all to mow all of the landscaped areas. This has been a task that took me about 3.5 hrs with a gas-powered string trimmer every weekend. After about 3-4 weekends, I had finally covered the whole area and it was time to start again. I think I spent about an hour this time and it looks great!

 

Not only does this lawn tractor mow, but it hauls too! Stephan and I hauled about 10 loads of NC red-clay soil from the pile next door to fill in some eroded areas on the side and back of the house where the rain water runs off. After cleaning the gutters out last week, it is no longer running over the top of the gutter and creating more ruts in the front yard. The downspouts run into a flex pipe which goes under the driveway and empties out on the other side. We put grass seed on all of the repaired areas, and with a lot of TLC we hope to have grass coming up in a couple of weeks.

 

All of the grassy areas are filling in nicely - as you can see from the pictures this week. I also got some pictures of Stephan and Grandpa having a water fight. I don't know who got the soggiest, but an expensive camera kept me out of it for the most part.

Posted some pictures of Tristan's graduation last Friday. The ones I took at the event did not turn out well, as we had seats in the nose-bleed section and I forgot the tripod in the Jeep. For those of you that were not able to attend - enjoy!

The grass is finally starting to come in. In fact, we'll need to be purchasing a riding mower soon just to keep up with it!

 

We still have a couple of areas where we will need to patch due to run-off from all of the rain we've had recently. I spoke with Jackie this weekend, and he will be back out to fix everything after the grass gets a little more mature. Lots of tiny blades this weekend. Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday was wind, rain, thunder and lightening. There were some periods of sun which were too short-lived for me. The temp was in the high 50's and low 60's. Quite a change from the hotter weatherin Charlotte (not to mention Tampa).

 

Odie dried in the house next door in less than 2 weeks. That guy is incredible...

 

It's Mother's Day, so the boys and I bought Grandma a beautiful angel statuette for the cabing. She'll have plenty of time to figure out where she'll out it when they come back up for Tristan's graduation in June.

 

Another new development is that NCDOT decided to finally pave Ebenezer, which runs right in front of the entrance to Laurelhaven. This will come in very handy next winter.

 

Finally, Stephan and I chopped down some more trees on the north side of the house. I can see a nice path from the garage back to the access road if we decide to make a circular drive. I also finally managed to put the address on the house. The E911 guy Lonnie will be happy (he's only told me to do that several times over the past few months).

Finally! Jackie's guys showed up this morning bright and early to get started on the final grade... again. The first attempt didn't go so well when we had a landscape company try. This time we got MTC (who did the original excavation and driveway) try their hand at it. The results are pretty darn impressive!

 

Things looked very nice - as you can tell from the pictures, until a big storm rolled in. Rain poured down for about an hour and turned all that red clay into slick red mud. After the rain let up, the sun came out and it didn't take long for the deck to dry out. The mud is going to take a bit longer though. Thank Jeep for QuadraTrac! I had pulled down into the driveway which by this time had been cleared of all traction-providing gravel. Didn't take a whole lot to get back up the hill to the access road.

 

Mark had gone to get the backhoe to pull out some of the more challenging stumps, and brought Jackie back with him. Jackie made quick work of the last 4 huge pines we needed to take down to expose a gorgeous view of the mountain to the south of the house. We really have a sweeping view of the countryside now!

 

Almost all of the huge stack of logs (that have been sitting on the property line for nearly a year) have been hauled away. Quittin' time rolled around and we have only a few logs left after filling up the dump truck twice. One more load tomorrow for the remaining logs and the enormous stumps  that Mark pulled out this afternoon.

 

The guys are coming back in the morning to finish grading the area to the south of the house, take all the ruts out of the ground, hand rake the landscaping, hydroseed everything in sight, and bring the gravel out to redo the driveway. They expect to be finished by the end of the day. I have been looking forward to this for the longest time... I am not disappointed as MTC has done a fantastic job so far!

More cleanup last weekend... Three more trees taken down, six left to go. These Locust trrs are tough!

 

Stephan and I burned one pile of limbs and a goodly portion of the big pile of trunks and stumps left from the original clearing of the land prior to starting construction. We chopped a bunch of the Locust trres into smaller chunks and stacked them below the bonfire. Near the driveway, we restacked a bunch of the logs from the fallen pine tree from the last ice storm. There were also a lot of smaller branches that needed to be cleaned up and disposed of. Fire is good for that!

 

The result was amazing! Eventually, the remaining 6 Locusts and 4 pines will be removed to clean up the clearing prior to landscaping which should happen in a month or so (when the weather warms up). The plan is to put a nice firepit in this area which is visible from the deck so everyone can enjoy it. A line of Rhodadendrons may line the southern property line to screen the power line and a blue trailer home which sits way down the hill and across the road.

 

Clearing these trees sure opens up the view of the mountain to the south. This mountain is covered with pines now, but with Spring coming the hardwoods will start to leaf out. Should be beautiful!

It's a whole different kind of yard waork than what I'm used to. Normally, I use a rake, hedge-trimmers, and lawn mower. This weekend, it was time to break out the chain saw!

 

If anyone ever tells you the saw does all the work for you, tell them they are crazy. Cutting down the trees are only a smal part of the job. Limbing, sorting, splitting the logs are hard work. Toting logs and limbs works up a sweat and is probably some sort of cardio workout (I wonder if I'm onto a new exercise craze here).

 

I only managed to cut down 2 out of the 11 Locust trees I need to remove. I am opening up a view to the south of the home, so these trees and 4 big pines need to be disposed of. One of the winter storms took down 3 large limbs on one of the pines earlier this year. I chopped them up for the most part and moved the remnants out of the driveway, but there was still a big mess to clean up. All of that is now sorted into a pile of logs to be split and a pile of limbs to be burned.

 

The wind came up and the temperature went down on Sunday, so we didn't get to the burning part yet. Luckily, I was able to drop the 2 closest to the wellhead without hitting the well itself. That would have been a mess. The plan is to drop the other 9 Locusts before the guys come to do the final grade when the weather warms up. I'll more than likely have them take out the 4 pines then. I don't want one of thos big boys falling on me. This will make a very nice spot for a firepit and/or volleyball court. Being just south of the house its perfect for a nice view from the deck.

Finally! Woke up this morning around 8am and saw the snow coming down. Ran into town to grab groceries and gas - just in case. Wonderful sitting in front of the fireplace, drinking coffee (note to self: need an espresso machine here), playing Halo 2 with my son, and watching the snow come down. Nice thing about having a wall full of windows is the large view of the outdoors.

 

Looks like our painter is just about done. She got the Home Theater all patched up from the electrician's work installing the sconces. Still lacking a piece of chair rail in the 4th bedroom that needs to be replaced.

 

The plumber got all of the fixtures put back into the basement bathroom. Looks great! I'm getting better at this tile thing. The grout turned out nice.

 

Looks like all of the exterior stain is done as well. The rest of the logs in the front (around the front door), the porch beams, railing, frame around the garage door, and the wooden blocks behind the coach lights downstairs - everything looks good.

 

So I am heading back to the cabin now. Had to get these pix uploaded for the folks in Florida sweltering in 80 degree heat today.

Slogging through the punch list and getting things cleaned up these days. I replaced light switches with dimmer controls in the Kitchen, Great Room, and upstairs bedrooms this weekend. I'll work on the downstairs bedrooms and Home Theater next weekend. The electrician is supposed to be back this week to wire the wall sconces and replace the ceiling fan in the Theater - but that's another story...

 

We have yet to experience real wintry weather this year - although Feb and March are usually when the cold stuff kicks in. The house stays warm with the thermo set to 69. I was concerned about that as I have no previous experience using a heat pump. The fireplace kicks out a lot of heat to take the edge off if needed, and the 2 ceiling fans force all of that hot air back down into the room from the vaulted ceiling.

 

It's looking like late March or April before we can get the final grade and landscaping done. The kids and I have been chopping, hauling, and burning tree remnants and stumps. It's amazing how several big piles of wood can be reduced to ash with a good ole-fashioned bonfire.

 

The punch list is getting smaller slowly but surely. The painter has been working the past couple of weeks to fix the items on her list. She has been very meticulous in going back over all of the drywall to make sure she catches any nail pops, blemishes, and such. The finish guys are supposed to be in later this week after she is finished to address the trim, wainscoat, T&G, cabinets, etc. We had to move some stuff around in the downstairs bath, so that's a mess at the moment. It will look great once the changes have been made.

 

Mom and Dad spent the better part of January living in the house and babysitting the subs. Hopefully things will settle down soon and the construction will be complete. I am looking forward to spending a lot of time relaxing in the mountains!

After a couple of false starts, we finally passed final inspection and got our Certificate of Occupancy! The permanent electric connection was installed this morning. The plumber is coming in the morning to pressure test the system, hot water heater, and pump. The electrician stopped by this afternoon to start work on his punch list. I am busy creating more lists for the rest of the subcontractors. We're hoping to have a good portion of the punch lists completed in the next few weeks.

 

The propane tank was filled today and should last the remainder of the winter. The fireplace throws a lot of heat by itself and the heat pumps are craking now. It was good to get some heat and lights in the house. Furniture should also be delivered on Tuesday. My brother is hauling more furniture up from Tampa next Monday. DirecTV is scheduled to be installed next Tuesday. Still need to get the phone connected.

 

There is a LOT of cleaning that needs to be done. The hardwood and tile floors are in dire need of a good scrubbing. Windows need to be washed, counters cleaned, etc. It's good to finally be able to see everything coming together!