3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

The long grass and weeds around the rocks are my own fault.
We have now sprayed that area with Surflan, a pre-emergent so no grass, flowers or weeds will grow right around the rocks. We were planning to add water down in that area so as to keep it green all year round. That was so we didn't need to weed-eat it down to the 6" minimum. What we didn't plan on is some of those weeds just kept growing taller and taller ... Yikes. The wild flowers died out but the weeds kept going. Our plan is to spray that entire area with pre-emergent and then plant flowery shrubs all over that hill side. We sort of ran out of budget for that though. The test shrubs we planted last year didn't take off like we thought and come Spring, the wild flower and weeds just took over.

I have finished running the irrigation sprinklers down the entire hill side.
They are all controlled via those valves on the upper decks. When we turn them on, we can see where the spray pattern is and control each sprinkler. It's all done from the deck level. I just need to make some turn keys to make it easier to turn the valves on and off. There are 6 large rainbird type spray heads down the hill side for when we get shrubs planted there. There are 3 down the south side yard. It will take a lot of work maintaining those areas to be either flowering shrubs and grass near the home.
Here are some photos of what the control lines look like coming off the decks.
The pvc pipes will be painted brown. I have connected 3/4" poly pipe at the very bottom and run that out to each sprinkle head.
Rob-

[3RRL]

You remember when we installed the large 5,500 gallon water tank?



It was there primarily for the fire department so they could suck water from it in case of a fire. At least 4,000 gallons are required by the fire code out here for that purpose. That tank is filled automatically by the well pump when water is used out of it. It has a toilet like fill valve in it. Anyway, after inspection, I added a 2" valve so I could use the remaining 1,500 gallons for irrigation. The valve is connected to a 2" gravity feed line which runs out to the house and different parts. I had that installed in the same trench when the pressurized well line was installed.

Also, I really wanted that tank to be constantly refreshed with water in case our main system failed.
We would then have enough drinking water at least until we got the well pump fixed or whatever. So I decided to add a 2hp booster pump (220v) to non pressurize the 2" line. I also added another manifold with several valves in case I wanted to irrigate behind the barn or for other purposes. Now, that entire line is also pressurized up to 45psi. At the home, with added head pressure, we get about 60psi altogether. That system is what I use for the irrigation or emergency use and feeds those watering stations on the decks at the house. It will also drain part of the large water tank, thereby adding fresh water from the well every day.



The 2 bladder pressure tank systems are separate ... one for the house (well pump) and one for the irrigation (large water storage tank). In fact, the two system are completely separate from each other except the large water storage tank relies on the well pump to fill it, of course. But there are valves on each system that can be connected via a garden hose so that if the well pump fails, I can hook up a hose connecting the water storage tank to the well pump bladder tank and feed the house (still under pressure) from the large water storage tank now. With the water being refreshed every day, it should be drinkable in case of an emergency.
Rob-

[3RRL]

I've been super busy with all kinds of projects ... the garden, the hillside, irrigation, tractor upkeep and services, the dang chickens and building some furniture out of Oak. If you are interested I can post some photos of the Oak stools and Oak table I am making. The stools are no big deal, but the table is being made of an Oak stump that I sawed in half, with the two pieces being butted up against each other.

Of the tractor projects, here is the story on building a new service road down to the meadow behind the home.
We needed a way to get our tools down there so we could install the irrigation on that hillside. It is a very steep slope indeed. I started cutting in the road from the South side of the home where the slope was more gentle.
Rob-

[3RRL]

My plan was to allow an entrance onto the steep hillside and also continue the road down the hill to the end of the meadow. There, it connects to a road I cut in last year on the North side near the small ravine. Even on the more gentle slope I had to cut quite a bit of dirt and decomposed gravel away to cut the slope out of the hillside.
The farther down I got, the steeper the hill got.



I used my trusty box blade bulldozing in reverse to cut the slope out of the hillside.
I used the "scalloping technique" like a bulldozer uses to cut roads into hillsides, except I was doing it in reverse going backwards. I was able to tilt the boxblade and cut off the high side so my tires would end up on more level, less sloped earth. Not only that, but the area I cut was now clean and fresh (more solid) than the spooky hillside slope. It took many passes to cut like that but it was a safe way to keep my tractor off a steep side slope and not tip over. I pushed dirt from the high side down to the low side and compacted as I drove over the loose dirt.
Rob-

[3RRL]

I had to use the rippers many times to loosen the hard decomposed granite and pull out rocks.
Once a part of the road was level enough, I turned around and used the FEL to loosen the higher banks I needed to cut away. I would dump buckets on the low side. I could do this because my tires were on the level part of the road now. Then to continue further down, I would turn around and bulldoze with the boxblade again. It was tilted pretty good on the first cuts and I would get it closer to level as the road got closer to level.
Wish I had a bulldozer for this kind of work!!
Rob-

[bracabric]

Rob, Well, never an idle moment eh? then again unless I miss my guess you probably don't know what the word idle means !!
Much luck
Dick

[FlyHiFlyLo]

Beautiful!

[quikduk]

Rob,

You have been busy haven't you. That road should make it a lot easier to maintain that north slope. I remember walking down it with you and it is pretty steep.

I like the PVC irrigation system you have set up. Re: the freezing, how do you insulate the pipes and will you change out the brass gate valves to SS ball valves?

Ken

[3RRL]

Jul 8, 2009 9:25:42 GMT -5 quikduk said:

Rob,

You have been busy haven't you. That road should make it a lot easier to maintain that north slope. I remember walking down it with you and it is pretty steep.

I like the PVC irrigation system you have set up. Re: the freezing, how do you insulate the pipes and will you change out the brass gate valves to SS ball valves?

Ken

Hi Ken,
I was going to wrap the pipes and drain the lines during Winter.
Also thought about building a little shed around it with a heater in it. I'm not going to change out those brass valves though. If I can keep them somewhat insulated, they should be good enough for the time being.

Oh, here are the table and chairs I've been working on too.
For the chairs, I cut a log into the seats and counter bored them for the legs. For the table, I split a large Oak stump in half and butted up the trunk part together. I'm using some of the roots for legs. Neither project is done yet. I'm still sanding and then have to start filling holes, stain and coat.
Rob-

Stools:

[3RRL]

Table:
What I started with and some of the work to get it to the sanded state.





And finally planed and sanded flat.

[Rich Waugh]

Very nice job on the table, Rob!

Rich

[quikduk]

Rob,

You know I have done custom woodworking for almost 30 years and that these stools and table are beyond cool. They are flat out bitchin'!

Some people would pay LARGE $$$$$ for a set like that. Don't sell it though as it adds to the character of the home you and Loretta have built.

Are you going to fill the voids with hardened fiberglass polyurethane resin? You could sand it smooth and then coat the rest of the top with the same. The voids would then look as if you could stick your fingers in them but actually couldn't. It would be AWESOME!!!

[GuglioLS]

Holly cow Rob,

You really moved mountains of DG to cutout those trails. I know that stuff is tough as nails. Doing what you did is truly amazing. Pictures never really show how steep those slopes are. I 've seen it first hand and would never attempt to do what you did on the side of the mountain in reverse on a tractor, now I know for sure your crazy or have no fear, same difference right? I suppose my little Komatsu Dozer would have come in handy, but your trusty box blade seems to have done the trick quite well.

OK on to the stools and table. What can I say besides totally cool! It's interesting to see you work with wood instead of metal where your are equally skilled and creative. Did you put the stool seats in the mill, tilt the head to bore the holes? Perhaps you even used your rotary table to get the holes exactly 120* apart? Since you could not weld the legs on, what did you use to glue them with?

Very nice projects.

Larry

[FlyHiFlyLo]

Jul 8, 2009 23:04:00 GMT -5 3RRL said:

Table:
What I started with and some of the work to get it to the sanded state.





And finally planed and sanded flat.

Two words! Awe Some!

[3RRL]

Wow guys,
Thank you for all the replies and interest.
The took some time to cut in on that back slope and I had to be really careful. When pushing dirt off the edge like that, I couldn't get 90° to the road so I was sort of angled on the road. That meant one rear tire got really close to the edge on the soft (just pushed) dirt. One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes you feel the tractor "sinking" on that soft side so I had to shift to forward quickly to get out of there. LOL ... there were a couple times I forgot to shift to forward !! That was pretty interesting.
But it came out very nice and so did I.

I know some of you are quite adept wood workers with skills far greater than mine.
Yes Larry, I put the stool seats on the mill and tilted the head to counter bore about 2" deep. I didn't use the rotary table though, I just used a large compass to scribe lines from on spot to the other so the spacing would be the same around the diameter. So it is not "exact", but pretty close. I made the stools look rustic since they will be out on the deck anyway.

Sawing the Oak stump in the manner I did turned out pretty unique.
It makes for a cool looking table with the roots going in an outward pattern and also down for the legs. I've seen other tree stump tables but not exactly like I'm doing here.
I bought some filler like Ken was talking about and need to seal the holes so I can fill them up and "see" into them. Right now I'm letting the table dry out more and more. It's planed and sanded but each visit back up here some areas warp a little more. I re-plane and sand the high spots and maybe in a month or so (when it settles down) I will start to add the filler and coat it.
First, I bought one of those "Lancelot" chainsaw blades for my angle grinder at Harbor Freight so I can contour and fake in the cut parts on the roots and outside of the table. Right now there are many roots that are just cut off and I want to grind them with the chainsaw to make it look like grain. So the outside of the table will have mostly bark on it with some areas sculptured (faked in) to blend it all together.

I realized I didn't show the other side of the table, so here is what that looks like.
There are 2 bumps on this side which are noticeable features. You can see where I want to fake in those roots that are straight chainsaw cuts. A couple of these photos really show how much I had to plane off the get the table tops level and smooth. I'm new at this so if I'm screwing up, don't hesitate to point me into the right direction.
Thanks for the interest guys.
Rob-