Into the Woods

I met with a timber guy today. He’s going to buy pretty much all my pine trees and get them out of my way. I’ll even make a little money off the deal — a few hundred dollars. I explained that I’m not trying to make money off the trees, that I only want to get the pines off the upper acre so that I can build there and so the young poplars and maples underneath the pines can have light and room to grow.

The aerial photo above is a winter shot. The lower end of the triangle is all hardwood. The green in the upper corner is pine. I’ll be getting rid of most of the pine in the upper corner.

The timber guy agreed to minimize the mess and to disturb the topsoil as little as possible. He’ll strip the limbs off the trees and leave the limbs in a single pile. I’ll need to get a chipper to come in and make a big pile of mulch out of the brush.

The tree work may start next week if we don’t get too much rain.

The woods looked mighty fine in the snow this morning.

I met with an electrician from Madison and signed a contract for bringing in the temporary power. That was a tad over budget (by $100 — total cost, $750), but no big deal. I should have temporary power ready to use within the next two weeks.

I also met with a septic tank contractor this morning. His quote also was a tad over budget (by $100, total cost, $2600), but again, no big deal, and I probably won’t bother with any more quotes for the septic tank.

The septic tank guy did say, however, that he can’t get a backhoe in there for the septic tank until some trees are gone. All the trees that have to go are pines, and he said I can sell them for lumber. I liked the sound of that — revenue off the trees, which I don’t want anyway. I’d like to get rid of pretty much all the pines and give the entire five acres over to hardwood. The septic tank guy recommended a timber guy, and I’m hoping to meet with the timber guy tomorrow. I’m not expecting to get much for the trees — maybe a few hundred dollars. But at least I won’t have to pay somebody to take them away. Now the stumps, that’s a different story. Getting rid of the stumps will cost me, but if getting ridding of the trees is actually revenue rather than cost, I should still be well within budget for clearing trees for the house and septic tank.

I got quite a lot done in Stokes County on Thursday. The people in the building permits office in Danbury were delightful to work with. I explained my intentions and showed them the blueprints for the house and wellhouse. In no time at all I had permits for the wellhouse and for the temporary electrical hookup (the cost for the two permits was $90). It’s a little too early to get the permit for the house itself, but at this point that’s the only permit I still need. All the other permits — wellhouse, temporary power, the well, and the septic tank — are taken care of.

Then I went out to the land and put in some stakes (around here we call them “stobs”) and flags to mark approximate locations of the house, the wellhouse, and the driveway. On Sunday, I’ll go back with my brother and sister to let them have a look at the location of everything. Once that’s all settled, the next step will be to get the tree guy to come take a look. I’ll only need to take out pine trees — no need to take out any of the mature hardwood trees. Among the pines there are many young hardwoods, mainly poplar and maple, eager to have room to grow. I hope we can take out the pine trees with minimum damage to the young hardwoods. They should grow quickly once the pines are gone and they have light and space.

The big rock is surprisingly difficult to photograph. But I tried.