Adventures In Homesteading (Day 369-370)

over 1 year ago

Hello Everyone!

The pesky PSU, Positioning the building, So much blocking, A short slope, Erosion prevention ideas & A site to further develop!

Alright, I woke up super early and try as I might... I have not been able to fall back asleep again... so I may as well see if I can get this entry spelled out long before dawn. Having missed my usual writing routine the other day, due to my faulty computer power supply (yet again) I am chomping at the proverbial bit to get back on track.

The last few days have really done a number on me physically... but thankfully I did not injure myself, my back is not causing me pain... and overall I am just stiff and achy. Considering everything that I have been up to it, is a wonder that I am not in rougher shape... which just goes to show that being incredibly mindful of my movements (especially while carrying heavy stuff) is paying off.

I do not want to get into all the nuanced details... but on the first day we got the flat spot finished, moved the building to its final place... and got it mostly blocked up and leveled. It was an absolute bear getting the building situated properly, due to how little room there was at the rear of it... and how inaccessible the downhill side is due to the steep terrain.

There were assuredly other difficulties that arose along the way, like the building shifting every time we lifted it with the forks on the skid steer... our blocking sinking almost as quickly as we got it into place... and having to constantly redo blocking that we had previously done. I had tried and failed to get a 'jeep jack' to do the project with... and ultimately wound up having to rely on the skid steer to do the lifting... which is what introduced the bulk of the challenges.

Anyways, I was happy to get the building placed regardless of all the hassle along the way... and truthfully it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been no matter how sketchy and downright dodgy that it was. In other words, the person helping me did fantastic work in a very much 'less than ideal' scenario... and with patience, methodicalness, some head scratching and lots of persistence... we eventually got the building sorted out as well as we could.

Lacking a jack there is/was only so much that I can/could do to get the building leveled... but from side to side it is only out of level a quarter of an inch (0.635 centimeters) and it is out an eighth of an inch (0.3175 centimeters) front to back. Which is not all that bad considering that it is a thirty-one by eleven foot (9.4 by 3.3 meter) building sitting on what I would call: Not the firmest ground!

That whole day really wore me out... and the following day was nearly as brutal but minus the high stress (and anxiety) of shifting around a giant object... and hoping that it does not fall down the mountain in the process. I dunno if it was due to still being wiped out from the day before... or what... but getting all the remaining blocking put into place took me most of the day to accomplish.

For the most part I have been using a combination of pressure treated 'six by six' (182X182 centimeter) square posts, some similarly sized round posts, lots of eastern cedar posts... and a few combinations of cinderblock/cap-stone just for good measure. I am unsure how well that the smaller sized posts will perform over time... but I have already resigned myself to the fact that I will need to continually evaluate the level of the building... and act to mitigate it accordingly as deviations arise.

One major concern that I have is that until I can get the building guttered... the runoff from the downhill side is going to be falling directly on the slope of the pad that we created for the building. Given that the slope itself is not only tiny but nearly vertical... there is not a whole lot that can get washed away without it seriously affecting the integrity of the pad that the building is sitting on.

Since even with gutters the same issue will exist (because gutters often overflow) I have been wracking my brain on what to do with the slope itself to help thwart the erosion. After running the gambit of thinking on how to utilize my available resources to build a retaining wall... I think that I found an easier solution.

What I am considering doing, is sectioning up the slope into three or four terraces... and using that 'staking and weaving' method that I have done before when creating terraces on a hillside for gardening purposes. I came to that solution as a good one, because the pad itself is mainly hard-packed clay that not much vegetation will grow on... which means I need to cover it with topsoil... but the slope is so short that all the topsoil would simply get washed away... which is where the terraces come in handy.

Basically, I am going to pitch all the terraces so that they drain towards the rear of the building... and into the retention area below... and build them out far enough so that the slope will have very distinct 'tiers' to it. I do not want to get too crazy with it... but I think that if I build the terraces knee high and back fill half their height with topsoil and some plugs of vegetation... it should not only hold the slope together but (over time) reshape it entirely.

That area also tends to get plenty of sun... and although I have been considering trying to create garden beds along the slope... I am unsure on doing that until I can assess how much water runoff that I am going to be dealing with. I have also been considering some wilder ideas, like installing a greenhouse that covers the slope and/or building the root cellar (much larger than I initially planned to) at the foot of the slope to act as a retaining wall.

Obviously, I will need to do something rapidly when it comes to all that erosion prevention stuff... so most likely I will use a bunch of the tree debris left over from the initial site clearing to make some rapid terraces... and see what happens from there. The only kind of 'odd' thing that I might do, is construct some sort of 'ground gutter' to catch the water off the roof... but I have yet to settle on how I want to construct it.

On a related note, I also have to figure out how to transition not one but two large changes in elevation where the entrances to the building's porch are. The lesser of the two is the front one... and I think that I can maybe solve that by creating a single step with a small platform that rests upon the ground... but whoa as far as the other entrance goes I am going to have to get creative.

That particular entrance, needs nothing short of either an all out deck built below it... with another two decks below that one to act as steps... or I need to build out (or cut in) steps directly on/in the ground. It is such a massive project, no matter what route that I take... that I am more than a little tempted to simply add a railing to that section of the porch and abandon that entryway altogether.

We will see how all that works out and although those things are high priorities... I also have other complications/challenges to solve in regards to making that entire area habitable. For instance, the way that pretty much all the windows and the door of the building can be looked into from the road... means that I will need to get serious about installing some privacy fencing... plus look at how to protect the porch from getting showered with road dust.

Then there is the whole dog yard scenario, which is incredibly tricky... given the proximity of that spring and the way that all the terrain slopes the surface water towards the spring area. My only real solution thus far, is to install fencing down the edge of the gulch to the camping area... and then jog it across the hill below the chicken coop... and then back up to the building (along the opposite side of the gulch) to create a triangular shaped fenced in area.

I am not all that excited about that aspect of things, because it would probably be easier (and definitely more straightforward) to fence the entire property in... and then fence off the areas that I do not want the dogs in. Considering that there is a road uphill of that spring... and numerous houses with septic systems and such... I know that the water from that spring will never be stellar... but I still want to minimize my own impact and that of the dogs.

Well, I have meandered on enough for now and want to get this wrapped up so that I can take my time with the editing and posting portion of things. I hope that folks are doing well. See ya on the flip-side.