At Home In The Woods

[dstig1]

Dave,
The county never said anything about railing for our two retaining walls. In this area, I can't remember ever having seen a retaining wall with railing on it. We may put some bushes in front of the house which could help. My wife has all the ideas on bushes and such. I'll just be the manual labor.
Obed

It's an issue I've been thinking about more, and I've seen it pop up a few times, but not in residential yet (to my knowledge). The county widened a road near my office and as a result cut into a couple banks. They built block retaining walls there - no more than 3-5' high. At the top of those walls they put railings. Granted, that is a public works project.

This thought has occurred to me more recently due to the site plan I have for our upcoming house. In one section there is a 13' high retaining wall, where it is very likely that someone could be walking up above it. That fall could easily be deadly (pavement below). It's not too different from what you have - it's to handle the grade differential for a garage door down below. It's just higher due to the slope.

If you think about it, why would it be any different than a porch? You are required to have a railing if the drop off is something like 3' for a porch. If pedestrian traffic is reasonably expected above, I think a railing should be pretty much required. I plan to do it for my situation, even if the inspector doesn't require it. I don't think every wall should require it, but in certain situations I think it is a wise idea.

 

[eepete]

I read that there is a trap you can put out in the springtime that baits and catches queen yellow jackets so you can minimize the problem at the beginning. I don't know how effective they are but I've read comments from people who say they work great.
Obed

The traps work, but they should be viewed as a way to reduce the number of nest you have. Put out in the spring (Early April around here), they can catch the queen (see picture). I put out two near areas I have to weed wack due to the slope. I had nests in those areas for 3 years in a row, none after this. One trap caught 3 queens and then later in the season quite a few "normal" ones.

But this year I've had 2 big nests so far, one about 50' from the trap (to give you some idea of the range) and one out in a field (no surprise, but boy it was a biggie and I was really liking the cabbed tractor!

Pete

 

[eepete]

On a different topic: You posted a while back about your gutter drains and then your clean out traps.

Well, after 3 years with no problems this spring some bird just kept making nests with hay. So I've had to dig up the lines and install either clean out traps or rubber seals I can remove to check things out.

Wanted to post this for those following your thread. BTW, on one gutter, all the clogg was _before_ the end of the gutter- I had to remove the PVC pipe and then found 3 feet of wet straw birds nests!

Pete

 

[dstig1]

Pete, was it a dove? I found one nest in my gutter when I did y roof earlier this summer...

 

[eepete]

It wasn't a dove. I'm kicking myself for not pulling out the book and identifying it. Next spring if they come back I'll get a whole pile of 8 x 10 glossy photos of them.

The 3' pile of nests had about 10 nest in there. I have to admire their persistence.

Pete

 

[jimrs]

Wow I found this thread on Friday morning and I just finished it tonight at 12:01 I guess it's now Monday morning. I have enjoyed reading about your build and everything else. I laughed and cried with you on every step of the way. I hope that they got the lawn finished and you now have a start on the grass. I have a couple of questions

1. Did you get your fireplace fixed?
2. Why are all the pictures of your wife
from the back of her head?

It was like reading a novel about what you went through. I hope you don't stop posting as I will be looking forward to seeing your place this time next year when you are more at home in the woods.

 

[Obed]

Wow I found this thread on Friday morning and I just finished it tonight at 12:01 I guess it's now Monday morning. I have enjoyed reading about your build and everything else. I laughed and cried with you on every step of the way. I hope that they got the lawn finished and you now have a start on the grass. I have a couple of questions

1. Did you get your fireplace fixed?
2. Why are all the pictures of your wife
from the back of her head?

It was like reading a novel about what you went through. I hope you don't stop posting as I will be looking forward to seeing your place this time next year when you are more at home in the woods.

jimrs,
Glad you've enjoyed the thread. TBNers have been quite a help during our house build. I've enjoyed sharing our journey with people of like interests. Many of the people I know, other than TBNers, can't really relate to a lot of our building process. They either don't have a tractor or haven't ever built a house.

The fireplace is still an issue. The fireplace guy wanted me to build a fire back in July and I declined for obvious reasons. I spoke to a fireplace company about 60 minutes from here who said I could look at their Quadrafire display model in order to compare it to ours. To find out if ours has a mfg defect. I just haven't done that yet.

My wife enjoys her privacy - thus the pictures.

 

[Obed]

These pictures were taken at the end of October as we graded behind the back of the house. I made sure that rainwater would run away from the retaining wall. You can see my wife working to create a drivable path at the bottom of the hill at the edge of the woods. The contractor left that spot too unlevel to drive the tractor on and my wife didn't like it that way. So she did something about it.

 

[Obed]

By mid-September I finished the last grading of the red-clay around the house. The area around the back porch and retaining wall required some digging by hand. I tried as best as I could to funnel rainwater away from the footers that support the porch posts. I was able to remove some of the dirt on the hill behind the back porch to make the slope less severe.

We were finally ready for topsoil!

We had had a few days of rain so it was finally wet enough that I could safely burn the burn pile in the garden area. The workers had stacked the wood debris like a tee-pee which made it impossible to burn stacked as it was, even with diesel fuel. After the leaves burned off, the fire almost went out because the brush was stacked so loosely. I ended up babying the fire and restacking it so it would burn. In the end the pile burned up nicely. There was just part of a stump and some small pieces left afterwards.

 

[scoutcub]

By mid-September I finished the last grading of the red-clay around the house. The area around the back porch and retaining wall required some digging by hand. I tried as best as I could to funnel rainwater away from the footers that support the porch posts. I was able to remove some of the dirt on the hill behind the back porch to make the slope less severe.

We were finally ready for topsoil!

Obed -

Place is looking great! I particularly like the picture of the house in the background, with the driveway on the left....gives a good perspective of the place!
I've done the same this summer, regrading essentially my whole 1.4 acres to swale water away from the garage, and make some drivable paths.
As far as topsoil, shop around. I was lucky enough to find an old farmer closeby that charges 110 bucks delivered for NICE topsoil not screened, but nicer than other screened loads I've gotten. That's in a single axle IH, and he heaps it over! I once (burn me once) this summer got a load of black loam from one of these landscape places....think it was close to 300 bucks.

Are you having some dozer work done as well? Get any seat time?


Frank