Land Clearing to House Building...

[hunterridgefarm]

hunterridgefarm, I love the pictures. What part of NC are you located (if you don't mind my asking). Beautiful views and I love the river.

I am located 1-1/2 hours east of Asheville, NC. In what is referred to as the foothills or South Mountain area. The closest little town would be Morganton, Hickory, or Lenoir, NC. I listed all three towns since it would be easier to find on a map.

The river was actually reclassified as an outstanding resource water about 20 years ago. It is one of the cleanest rivers east of the Mississippi for about 5-10 more miles past my property.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

People might say I'm crazy but I'd take down a few more trees in the front to get more of a view. Beats looking at trees. Being on top of a ridge I bet the trees don't offer a lot of protection from wind, rain, etc. Unless you are on the back side of the worse weather.

I didn't have much choice with my view but I'd keep it just the same.

Here is my web page of the weekend place I build back in 2001-2002.

Elkhart House Project

Rob

Rob,

I will thin a few more trees out in the front but I do want to leave it as natural as possible. Wind is not bad the large trees on the sides seem to block it.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

So what's next on the agenda? Do you have building plans already and a contractor picked out?

Rob,

The house is already under roof. I am just trying to post pics to that point. I did not have time to load the pictures until last week. Been trying to get my wife and son to load pictures all summer since they were off from school

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Here are a few pictures of of what it looked like after the track loader was finished.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

If you look at this pic, the pine tree in the middle is one corner of the house will be located with the other where the tree is on the ground.

There is a slope in the back where we cut into for the basement.

 

[1bush2hog]

HunterRidge -

Everything is lookin' good! The river is beautiful too - guess you won't have any water problems. You have very nice there. Can't wait to see more pics.

Make sure you buy the kids new sleds to try out on that driveway this winter

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Starting to cut trees. I would usually cut 5-10 trees at a time trim the limbs off and cut the tops out. Next it would be drag or use the forks to move the logs.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Couple of pics using the 3130 to pull logs that I could not get to with the forks. Since I would have to approach some of the logs on uneven ground it was safer to drag them out and then use the forks.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Most of the pine trees I could push over with the 3130 and fill in the holes.

The hardwood trees were a different story...so I had to go with the stump pusher. The attached picture is me and the stump pusher.

Now the great thing about this is the guy I used for this said when he brings it back for the final grage of the driveway he will leave it with me 2-3 weeks for me to use for $100 and me put in the fuel! Needless to say we have become good friends. Of course he wants to sell it to me and this is his way of getting me hooked!

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Here is the pile of stumps my little stump pusher produced, about 75 in all.

Cost: pushed up 75 stumps and hauled all but 3 off for $900.00.