We Moved Our Driveway...

2:03 pm - 68 degrees - watching thunder clouds roll in...

We finally did it! We moved our driveway over and made a parking area that is big enough to turn a trailer around. We have been wanting to do this for a while now, and I am so excited that it's almost done – all we have left is to finish planting out all the dirt areas.

From the main driveway, you were able to see down into our place, the house, the yard, the cars, everything. In the dry summer months, when someone drove by or it got windy, the dust would roll on down into our place. So with moving the driveway over, building a burm across the old driveway entrance and planting it out, it will give us that extra bit of privacy and hopefully keep the dust out.

Last fall, Tony roughed in the new driveway and was able to get some base rock down before winter.

Then in early April Tony started cutting down trees, this was originally to expand our wildfire defensible space around the house {click here}, but it evolved into a much larger project...

After a few of the trees came down and we picked up the mess, we walked around our driveway (new and old) and started tossing around ideas of how we wanted to get rid of the old driveway entrance, and just how everything would lay out and come together. Then Tony suggested that we could take some dirt from over here and put it over there and voila, we could have a really large parking area. I said let's do it!

A few weeks went by and then I came home to a big surprise! Tony was in the excavator and a friend was in a bulldozer and they were moving a TON of dirt! I was giddy with excitement that the driveway project was actually happening!

From the time Tony started moving dirt, it took 3 and a half days (over a week and a half time period) to complete the driveway and parking area project and since Tony was able to reuse the rock from the old driveway in the new parking area, we were able to save about $2500 because we didn't need to buy rock - I really loved that part!

I could not be happier with how this project has turned out, it's even better than I anticipated. Now we just have to finish planting out all of the dirt areas.

New Parking Area

We can park cars/trucks - 6 wide, 2 deep.

Just above the row of boulders on the middle terrace, we planted some Everybearing Strawberries. I know we're taking a bit of a chance having the strawberries out in the open like that, but hopefully the deer will leave the majority of them alone and they will spread and creep around and down the boulder wall.

Everbearing Strawberries

About 6 feet behind the strawberries, is a row of Cascara trees, and right behind those are two rows of Redstem Ceanothus.

Cascara
(Rhamnus purshiana)

Redstem Ceanothus
(Ceanothus sanguineus)

Going up the back wall of the burm that blocks off the entrance to our old driveway, we have several rows of Redstem Ceanothus, followed by several roes of Western White Pine, one row of Rocky Mountain Maples, and two more rows of Western White Pines. On the very top we have a row of Cascara trees and below that, on the main driveway side, is a row of American Cranberries. We will be adding some more mature Vine Maples and maybe a few Noble Firs on the top to help block the view a bit more until everything else starts to grow up.

Western White Pine
(Pinus monticola)

Rocky Mountain Maple
(Acer glabrum)

  

American Cranberry
(Vaccinium macrocarpon)

And finally back towards the house I built a stone retaining wall to make a flower bed where we planted some Kinnikinnick.

Kinnikinnick
(Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)

Current Plant Count:

15 American Cranberries

14 Cascaras

26 Ceanothus' 

50 Everbearing Strawberries

7 Kinnikinnick

15 Rocky Mountain Maples

43 Western White Pines

In addition to all of the baby plants we are putting in, we're also going to throw down more grass seed to help stabilize all of the dirt. I am so excited, I can't wait for everything to grow up. 

Still Need To Plant/Transplant:

Evergreen Huckleberry

Kinnikinnick

Noble Fir

Oregon Sunshine

Pacific Crabapple

Ponderosa Pine

Thimbleberry

Vine Maple

Wildfire Defensible Space...

8:29 am - 39 degrees out - clouds are moving in...

The last several days we have had sunshine! The nice weather was needed after several weeks of rain and snow. With this gorgeous weather, we have taken full advantage and have been busy outside working.

Tony cut down some more trees to help improve our defensible space around our home. A few years back we had a DNR (Department of Natural Resources) Fire Forester guy come out to look at our place and let us know how we would fare if a wildfire came through. The outcome of that visit was the knowledge that we would be on our own. We were told that ground fire crews would not be sent out due to the steepness and inaccessibility of the mountain ridge we live on. They may send out an aircraft to drop some fire retardant on our house but that’s about it. On the positive side, the DNR guy did say that we had a great start on the defensible space around our home and had the right to stay and protect it. {Click Here} to read more about that visit.

Down came six small Alder trees and one large Douglas Fir tree, and it took us two days to get it all cleaned up... 

...well almost all cleaned up.  We still have the large rounds in the driveway that need to be cut up and split into firewood.

Even though we are tired and sore from working nonstop for the past several days to get the trees down and cleaned up... progress feels good!

Landscaping The Backyard...

9:08 am - 44 degrees - raining...

It is Spring Break right now, and we decided to stay home to get some projects done around the property.

Every year after the snow melts away, we are left with a mess! There is a 14'-16' swath of rock that is scattered in the grass alongside the driveway from the snowplow and snowblower. There are broken branches and twigs scattered all over the place. And the grass and all the plants are matted down and just look blah. I cannot wait for everything to perk up and start greening up!

All this rock had to be racked back into the driveway.

Now that the majority of the snow has melted I wanted to take advantage of the time off and get some work done around the house. So this week I have been cleaning up and burning in between rain showers.

Burning yard debris.

Yesterday there was another break in the rain and I decided to get rid of one of the many rock piles we have scattered here and there - we have very rock ground. About a year and a half after we moved up here, Tony and I used up some of our excess rock to build a couple of rock stars {click here}. After we were done, we intended to transplant plants around the stars... but we never quite got around to it. So fast forward to yesterday and I decided to add a third star.

I printed off my original grid star design that I made (each star is 12'x12'), grabbed my gloves, a tape measure, marking spray paint, stakes, and twine. Next I measured out where my stakes needed to go, strung out my twine, and marked my lines on the ground with my marker spray paint. 

Then I started to fill in my star outline with rocks. I found the best angled rocks for the star points, then made my rock outline, and lastly filled in the center.

After my star was completed, I raked around all three stars and just cleaned it up a bit because this year I AM going to plant around the stars and get that flowerbed finished!

I think it turned out pretty good. The whole project took me about 4 hours, and I already had all the supplies so it cost me nothing!

Building A Pond...

4:50 pm - 47 degrees - foggy, raining...

When we were driving around looking for property 12 years ago, we came upon this near-perfect rural off-grid property... and we were sold!

Our property has a good amount of acreage, gorgeous views, a nice home site, and it’s a nice distance to and from civilization.  It was perfect... except for one small thing – it was missing a visible water feature.  Yes, a river bisects our lot, but we can’t see it from the house.

I have always wanted to live on a lake or have a large pond or some kind of water feature within sight of the house.  It's only taken 12 years, but we finally have a visible water feature – a pond!

A pond offers numerous benefits for landowners: entertainment for the family, water for wildlife, aquaculture, fire protection, erosion control, and aesthetics are but a few. 

And in our case, the pond will also hopefully offer another source of power – hydroelectric power. 

For those of you who don’t know what hydroelectric (or hydropower or hydroenergy) is – it’s a reliable source of renewable energy that runs 24/7 for very little cost.  Power is generated from the movement of water, like waterfalls or streams, water that is stored in dams, as well as flowing in river to create electricity.  The water flows through a turbine to help generate electricity; using the energy of falling or flowing water to turn the blades.  The rotating blades spin a generator that converts the mechanical energy of the spinning turbine into electrical energy that we can use to power our home.

Even though a pond has so much to offer, there are a lot of factors that needed to be considered first.  Factors like:

 - Is the land and soil actually suited for a pond?

 - Can we build the pond ourselves?

 - What size of pond do we want and what size will fit?

 - How much will this project cost?

 - How long will this project take?

While Tony is the researcher, thinker, and planner, I am one to jump in with both feet now.  So when he told me that he was thinking that he could put in a pond and wanted to know what I thought – my response was YES, the bigger the better!

After walking around the designated area he had picked out and visualizing his plan of attack, Tony started digging, and digging, and digging.

The underground springs Tony tapped into, quickly started filling the hole and eventually the big hole started to look like a pond.  Before the pond got too full, he added a 4” pipe that is about 2’ below the water line for our future hydropower source.  

Tony also added an 18” culvert for an overflow.

After getting the edges, top and surrounding area cleaned up, we spread grass seed covered with Turf Mulch.  The Turf Mulch is a naturally organic product that is a ground dressing for the newly seeded area.  It will help the ground retain moisture, form a protective mat over the seed, help the grass seed germinate quicker and help with erosion control until the grass grows in.

And we now have a 10' deep by 40'x50' trout pond!  The water level is currently at the uncapped hydro pipe, which he painted black so it would blend in a little more.  Tony wanted to keep the water at the lower level until the grass starts to grow.  The trout will be coming in about a month or so.  So excited for this project and how it is turning out!  My husband is amazing!!

Fire Pit...

8:49 pm - 63 degrees - light layer of clouds...

My parents had a section of an old steel heating oil tank sitting at their house; I asked if I could have it since they had already cut off part of it to use as a fire pit at our beach property.

After Tony brought the round chunk of steel home, he spent a few hours working on it.  First he measured out his cut marks, cutting off the one uneven end and then cutting the left over section in half.  We ended up with two 16” high rounds that we’re going to use for fire pits.

Of course we just had to try it out as soon as he finished cutting it.

We also decided to use one of the old orchard crates that we picked up last year to store the firewood in. 

Now all we have to do is gravel the fire pit area, and that section of the yard should be done.

Too Many Projects...

12:04 pm - 70 degrees - beautiful day...

We seem to have too many projects, and not enough time.

Yes, I’ll admit it... we are up to our ears in projects (not including working on the house) and they all feel important.  I know we should be concentrating on just one at a time but it is so hard when so many of them are weather dependant.  Especially right now when it has been gorgeous out and it’s supposed to stay that way for the next week.  So we’ve been working all over the yard, on different projects trying to get them all done (or as many as possible) before the cold, windy, rainy, snowy weather hits.

Here are just a few of the larger outside projects we’re working on...

We only have a few months of the year where the ground is dry enough to move around so we are trying to take full advantage of the gorgeous weather right now and hopefully get a bridge put in.  The plan for the backyard --- you will step out the double doors onto the back patio, which is 40’ wide x 16’ deep.  Straight off the back of the patio there is a 50’ wide x 14’ deep flower bed (where the two rock stars are {click here}) that slopes down to the grassy 50’x50’ backyard (it’s currently more dirt than grass), which will also be surrounded by flower beds on three sides.  Back to the patio... off the right side of the patio is where we are going to put a bridge (wide enough and strong enough to drive a car on) that crosses over a drainage ditch to the garage pad. So yesterday we did a lot of measuring and marking. 

 

We were originally going to make the big bridge match the little footbridge {clickhere} but then Tony found this huge chunk of culvert that is 10’3” long with an inside diameter of 48”.  So we are going to cut it in half and use it to form a rock bridge.

 

Another project we’re still working on is cleaning up the defensible space {click here}.  We still have to remove about a dozen rotten snags, and burn all the huge burn piles.

 

 

 

 

And of course we cannot forget firewood...yes, we are still cutting, splitting, and hauling firewood.  It seems that this is a never ending project!

 

 

It's How We Mow...

7:26 pm - 72 degrees - calm, clear night...

Backyard Fire Pit Ideas...

12:34 pm - 67 degrees - partly cloudy...

This past week the weather has been just gorgeous and last night was the perfect night for roasting hot dogs over a backyard campfire. 

More than nearly any other outdoor feature I can think of, a fire pit (or backyard campfire area) instantly makes the yard the place where everyone wants to be.  It easily becomes the focal point of a space, drawing friends and family together around its warm glow.  Whether your ideal vision includes kids roasting marshmallows, or just sitting back and relaxing with a cold beer, there is just nothing better than sitting around a fire in your own backyard.

Currently we have a small metal fire pit surrounded by a few slab benches that Tony has recently made.  It’s a temporary thing because we want to make an actual campfire area in a different location – and we think we have finally picked out the perfect location!

Now that we have finally picked out the location, we need to decide on the type of fire pit we want to make.  There are so many ways to make your own fire pit and so many different designs... above ground or flush with the ground; surrounded by built-in benches or leave it open for chairs; leave it open or surround the fire pit in a 16x16 screened in gazebo...and the list goes on.

Here are a few photos that are inspiring our perfect backyard fire pit area...

 

{photo source: www.feeltheambiance.com}

{photo source: www.martysplace.com}

{photo source: www.popularmechanics.com}

{photo source: www.portlandmonthlymag.com}