Posts under ‘Building’

In various pictures posted so far, you can see a pasture in the distance. It is not part of my property, but I am on good terms with the owner. I asked him if I could go after the multiflora rose on the edge of his pasture, both to prevent a source of [...]

Last summer, I engaged the services of Sutherland, LLC, which owns a Bull Hog machine, to clear thickets of multiflora rose and oriental bittersweet. The thickets were so dense that once they were finished, I really couldn’t see what else needed to be done until the leaves fell last fall. When I visited [...]

When I got the first part of the driveway finished in late 2008, I was unsure where the house site would be and thus didn’t know the route of the driveway. I made that decision early last summer and a neighbor cut the trees in the way for firewood. Unless the house site [...]

I’ve long been interested in “alternative” building and one of the primary requirements when I started looking for property in Floyd County was a southern slope to take advantage of passive solar heating. I talked to one Realtor who told me that everyone was looking for a parcel with a southern exposure and didn’t [...]

When I was looking for property, I deliberately looked during the late fall and early winter, when the leaves were off the trees and the lay of the land was visible. Prior to this trip, I had never been to Floyd in the summertime and even though friends told me the difference was astonishing [...]

Before I closed on the purchase of my property in February, 2008, I hired Jeff Walker, a soil engineer, to verify that I would be able to obtain a septic tank permit. He did so, and specified an area where the drain field and house site should be. At the time he performed [...]

What kind of a title is that for a post?? Is he referring to a bull hog and using the wrong name (should be a boar) or is he referring to something else? Something else, indeed!
After being sued in Floyd County in February by an excavation contractor who lives in Check, I was [...]

I own 11.5 acres of wooded land in Floyd County, Virginia. It is what is known as “land locked” – that is, it does not front on a public road. But I have a non-exclusive right-of-way across my neighbor’s land for access. As I posted last fall, I had a driveway built [...]

The driveway is finished. One of my neighbors took the following pictures:

This view is from near the top of the hill, looking down towards the road. Quite a difference from the previous picture, huh?

Since I was a pre-teen, I have wanted to build a “neat” house tucked into the woods. I currently own a tiny portion of an ecosystem that was once more common in South Florida than it now is: a tropical hardwood hammock. When I bought the property, some years after Hurricane Andrew roared through [...]