Here are a few more pictures. This one shows some of the shrinkage that the logs have done. The trim that Carol is holding against the cabinet has a notch in it where it is against the cabinet,
that notch should be under the cabinet and it's a little over an inch to high right now. The cabinet is mounted on a piece of oak plywood that is mounted on the wall at the ceiling so that it will come down with the wall instead of tearing off the wall when it shrinks. This piece of trim was sitting on the cabinet below Carol's hand so it didn't have any place to go and it caused the
cabinet to move away from the stove which is just to the left of it and I had a heck of a time trying to get the trim out without messing something up. I got it out ok and cut the notch so it would fit again. This was a good example to show everybody some of the shrinkage and it has done more.


A little more landscape and this time we had a stone retaining wall put around the front yard and filled it in with more dirt so that the yard would be more level and look a lot better. We had 2 humongus dump truck loads brought in and 3 pickup loads but that still wasn't enough, we could use 1 more dump truck load. The wall isn't as high as I wanted it to be but it's a lot better than before.




We also had some work done here in the back. We needed it leveled out some also and needed a ditch put in between the house and the hillside to the left in this picture. We needed it to redirect the runoff from any heavy rain to that side of the house so it wouldn't pool in the low spots and get into the basement also to keep it from trying to wash out the driveway at the garage which is to the right in this picture. We haven't had any real heavy rains yet to find out how good it will work. It we can keep water out of the basement then we can finish the basement, we are hoping to anyway. There will be some pictures of the ditch in a later post.


This is a picture of where I spend some time out of the sun right in the middle of 3 cedar trees. A perfect spot to take an afternoon nap.



This is between the driveway and the road so it's the front front yard. I had it cleared out some and there were 2 big low spots, 1 in this picture and 1 in the next picture, that I had filled in with some of our infinite supply of rock and then covered over with dirt. We are planning on planting some fruit trees in this area.

These next 3 pictures are of a hiking and nature trail I made that turned out to be pretty good. It goes into the woods a little ways then to the right and up the hill and loops around into a small valley and up another hill then down and back onto this trail all still on our property. I took our 5 year old niece on it and she said it was boring, I guess because there was nothing but bugs and we didn't see any animals then but her 8 year old brother seemed to think it was ok. There are a lot of animals around tho, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, bobcats, deer, turkeys, chipmunks, armadillos, mice, bald eagles, bats, assorted small snakes and can't forget the occasional skunk or 2. We have seen all of these animals on or above our property except for the armadillo and turkey but have seen them in the local area. I guess we were making too much noise while we were walking around the trail. There have been sightings of black bear and cougar in this part of the country too but so far we haven't seen any but don't worry as long as you aren't the slowest in your group they won't hurt you.


This is the path that starts up the hill but with the shadows and leaves it's a little hard to see it.

Here are a some more pictures and the first ones are of a raccoon and a 'possum that I caught and took out to a wildlife preserve called "Indian Trails" and let go so they can go and bug somebody else for awhile. Remember, you can click on each picture to see a larger view of it.



These 2 pictures I took with my cell phone (a Blackjack) account I forgot to bring my "real" camera but it did ok, good enough for government work anyway.


These next few are of the red shed that I built from a kit. It's a 10' x 10' barn shed. Actually it measures 10' by 9'9" but the instructions didn't say that and it did made a difference when it was being put together. It didn't say whether the long side or the 3 inches shorter side was the front & back or the sides. Well anyway I got the wrong side in the front & back so I had to do some changes to the angle of the rafters and the way the front and back was cut to match the rafters plus a few other minor things but it's done now and better than the original because I beefed up the supports for the loft inside so it would hold more weight for storage. The big shed I bought already made, all that had to be done was the delivery and setup and the builders did that. They also furnished the little ramp that is in front of it but with the front end up off the ground it was too short so I put it in front of the one I built and made another one for the big shed. I use the big one to keep my tractor in and built a work bench and work area in the back.
The shed is a 12' x 24' so its big enough for both the tractor and a work shop. I also had electric run to both sheds so I can now shock the crap out of myself in either shed.

This is after I had finished the small shed and after the electric was put in. There is a light and an outlet in the small shed and 4 florescent lights and 10 outlets in the bit shed and a spot light over the doors.




I happened to see this critter running across some gravel next to the yard while I was moving the front lawn. I bet if that thing dropped down in front of you while you were eating your curds and whey it would make your rear end pucker up!


This toad came hopping by about 5 minutes after I saw the spider, wonder if he ate it? I didn't kill the spider they and the toads keep the bug population down, also there are a few bats around here and they eat a lot of bugs too. Anything that eats bugs I leave alone even the small snakes and lizards. Actually I think the spider might be big enough to eat the toad, legs and all it would have covered the palm of my hand and the toad was about the same.

There are 14 pictures in this post. Here are a couple of pics of the finished patio by the back porch and garage but as you can see I haven't gotten the mess cleaned up yet. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get a half way acceptable picture of the patio especially in bright sunlight because of the contrast. Up close the camera would meter for the light on the patio and everything else would be too dark to see and if you backed up to get more into the picture the patio would be too bright to see much detail, I had to wait until the sky was overcast (there was some sun peaking out through the clouds tho) to get a viewable picture. The patio actually looks better in real life than it does in these pictures. I try to get some better pictures later to post.


These next ones are of the walk being put in. You can also see the new grass after I raked up all the straw, it sure made a nice bright fire.

This picture was taken from the balcony and I zoomed in on it.


Another one from the balcony.

In the background around the curve of the driveway and the grass we are going to have a retaining wall from a foot to about 2 feet high built around the front yard and then fill it in with some good fill dirt to somewhat level it out, it won't be completely level but a lot more than it is now. Also there will be a small one from the steps to the garage where I'm standing when I took this picture.
As you can see there are a few logs on the dormer that are a lot lighter than the others, I guess they forgot to put the Wood Guard on those. I don't have a ladder yet that will reach the porch rood so I had to climb out the window to get to them, I went ahead and coated all the logs on the front and sides of the dormer since it gets all of the sun. Also I had to reseal around the chimney account there was a small amount of water leaking down the outside of the chimney in the living roos when we would get a real heavy rain.

The grass if finally coming up, planted on March 14th. The junk pile in the background between the house and the shed is finally gone, I finished getting it cleaned up today and you wouldn't believe all the scrap wood that was mixed in with the dirt and rocks. The front end loader on the tractor sure paid for itself with that job. One great thing about living out in the country is you can burn that kind of stuff without somebody getting all excited about it.


In the next set of pictures the grass here really looks good. Also there will be a new sidewalk between the steps and the driveway and a new patio by the back porch and the garage.