Bringalingaling Spring!

March 21st, 2008, 2:46 pm Josh Houghtelin Construction, Home

Spring is on its way! Heck yeah, it’s getting close to that time of the year again when photosynthesis truly starts throwin a whoopass on the dull brown and gray brought by winter. The pond in our yard has warmed up enough to wake all the frogs who chose to slumber in it. When they all start chirping it’s actually quite deafening. The ones in the lake have yet to wake up though so we still lack the noise canceling backup singers. The rabbits have appeared in force giving the dogs something to chase. They look like they are working on setting new land speed records as they fly across our property. That is untill you see how fast dogs can actually run. Fortunately for the rabbits the dogs have yet to become one with the whole 90 degree turn at a full sprint trick.

All of this means we can finally stop hibernating indoors as if we are affraid of the sun. About two months ago I brought our chain saw in to Clinton Mower & Saw Shop to get sharpened & rebuilt. Unfortunately I can’t suggest anyone drop their equipment off there becuase every week I called they kept giving me the run around saying “It’s number rand(2,10) in line and will be worked on shortly”. Two months after I dropped it off I decided to just go pick it up and bring it elsewhere. I intend on dragging out the push lawn mower, the Lawn Eater & trailer, tiller, and the weed wacker this weekend to get them ready for a fresh year. The demonic honey locust trees gaurantee all our utility vehicle tires will be flat and the snap from summer to winter had me scrambling to hide the machines leaving fuel and oil in them which tends to get a bit crusty over winter.

The Lawn Eater back when I was testing the “foam tire” idea.

Once the machines are ready to go Zippy and I have a ton of work to do. To get the summer started we will be tilling up a lot of the clay ground we live on for flower and garden beds which also ties in with removing a lot of annoying Honey Locust trees. Then we have to extend our driveway around the pond which entails interesting construction plans and level off a good chunk of land where we ultimately hope to build a barn this summer. We bought a lot of wild flower seeds on sale last year to spread around the pond and along the driveway in hopes of bringing a lot of fresh new color to the land this year. Since we live on an old strip mine we have an abundance of rocks to use to complete the Stone Pump House Project. After that is complete all the rest of the rocks we find are going to line the outside edge of the pond.

If all goes well our property should look much nicer by the end of this summer. We are even considering buying a wood chipper to make use of all the extra brush we aquire from chopping down the trees rather than burning it all. I could see an overwhelming amount of wood chips coming in quite handy. I’ll keep posting as the projects keep cropping up and getting knocked out.

Just for nostalgia sake. Here are some old pictures.

This is before we even planned on living at the property. Now our driveway comes in the chute between the trees and the photo was taken from where the mobile is now.

Zippy walking near the pond years before our plans to inhabit the place. The photographer (me) is standing where the mobile is now.

And a more recent picture taken during the cleanup project to get the property ready to have the septic, cistern & electricity installed. This picture is taken virtually the completely oposite of the first photo. It was taken standing in the driveway. The house is now situated where the skid loader, pickup and camper is in this photo.