Turning Points » Building

Destroying Rose Bushes on the Pasture Edge

Jeff — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:43:20 +0000

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 re-seeding on my property and to improve my view a little bit. When I spoke to him about it over the telephone, he was reluctant to grant me permission, but once we sat down on Saturday and started chatting about other topics, he volunteered that he just wasn’t able to cut it with the sickle attachment on his tractor and that I could go ahead and remove it. But he did want me to pull out all of the branches that the ice storms had broken from the trees so that he could cut them up for firewood. I pulled what I could out and then enlisted the help of my neighbor, Kevin, who used his chain saw to cut the larger branches into manageable pieces. What you see in this picture is the pasture line, infested with multiflora rose, and some of the branches which we dragged out into the pasture:

Here is a shot of the Bull Hog in action, shredding the multiflora rose:

And here is a shot of the finished job:

Larry Holden, the farmer who leases the pasture from my neighbor, wasn’t terribly happy with the branches in the pasture, as he had to haul them away to a pile where my neighbor could cut them up, but since I had my neighbor’s permission to pull the branches out into the pasture, I think he’ll forgive me with time.

It took the Bull Hog less than 2 hours to clear 850′ of fence line along the edge of the pasture. That included a couple of stops to remove barbed wire that the operator accidentally ran into while mulching the rose plants – it was hard to see the fence, the rose was so thick!

The Return of the Bull Hog

Jeff — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:10:07 +0000

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 in November, it was clear to me that there was an area that also needed to be cleared so that downed locust from Hurricane Hugo could be removed. I don’t have pictures of the Bull Hog in operation in that area, because I was busy discussing some work to be done with a surveyor at the time. But I do have pictures of a pile of logging debris that the Bull Hog made short work of. Even though the hourly price has gone up from $100 to $125, the Bull Hog is still a great bargain. It can do in an hour what it would take a person days and days to do. It is truly an amazing piece of machinery!

This shot is of a pile of logging debris at the end of the driveway:

The Bull Hog in action, mulching the debris:

And the end result:

The mulched debris will prevent erosion on the slope, also, since it covers the bare ground.

The Driveway, Extended

Jeff — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:55:02 +0000

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 changes, which is not too likely, the driveway as built now is pretty much what it will look like in 10 years. Of course, I may add native plant beds along the sides to dress it up! Or maybe blackberry and other small, fruiting plants. Nice way to lure the black bears within photography distance, eh?

This shot is taken from the end of the driveway looking up towards the top of the hill:

And this shot is taken at the top of the hill looking down towards the end of the driveway:

The route looked pretty ugly last fall, after the trees were cut down, but now that the driveway is finished, I think it looks very nice!

Passive Solar Building

Jeff — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:14:33 +0000

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 give me much hope of finding such a parcel. I found the parcel I bought on my own, by using U.S. Coast and Geodetic survey maps for elevations and orientation. Unfortunately, it turned out that the parcel I bought was listed by the very same Realtor who told me that everyone was looking for southern exposure. He had not told me about the parcel, either – so much for earning his commission! Fortunately, I was working with another Realtor, so the commission was split – the first Realtor didn’t get the entire commission.

I had read several books on passive solar construction before finding my parcel and learned that one of the first pieces of information you need when designing a passive solar heated house is to know the heating and cooling degree days of the site so that the amount of square feet of glass and the cubic foot size of the heat retention area can be calculated. There are a number of web sites out there that offer guides to the numbers for various parts of the country, but Floyd County, because it is not very close to a weather monitoring station, does not have very accurate numbers. Also, because Floyd County is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the terrain is quite rugged in areas and a home that is quite comfortable on a winter day can be a mile away from another house that is miserably frigid. A lot of this has to do with elevation and orientation – many people (foolishly, in my opinion) build their homes on top of a knoll for the view, forgetting that in the winter, winds can be up to 80 m.p.h. in many parts of Floyd County. My house will be built down the slope from the top and will probably be at least partially earth-sheltered. In short, weather is highly variable in Floyd County. I needed a way to gather the data for my micro climate.

So off I went, searching for a device that could record temperatures on an hourly basis so that I could construct my own data for the heating and cooling degree days for my site. I found the device at this site – it is made by MicroDAQ and is used in the cold food storage industry to monitor food temperatures for spoilage.

The data logger is about the size of a credit card. I bought some waterproof plastic boxes that are used by SCUBA divers to protect items and I was in business. I placed a data logger at four different locations on the property and programmed the cards to take a reading every hour of every day for 6 months. I started collecting data in May, 2008 and came back in October to download the data and re-start the devices. I collected the loggers on this last visit and now have a considerable amount of data to convert into heating and cooling degree day figures.

Here is what the raw data looks like for January 16, 2009, a memorable day, I’m sure, in the minds of many Floydians:

1894 1/16/2009 6:00:00 PM 13.7

1895 1/16/2009 7:00:00 PM 10.4

1896 1/16/2009 8:00:00 PM 8.8

1897 1/16/2009 9:00:00 PM 7.3

1898 1/16/2009 10:00:00 PM 6.3

1899 1/16/2009 11:00:00 PM 4.2

1900 1/16/2009 12:00:00 AM 3.3

1901 1/16/2009 1:00:00 AM 3.3

1902 1/16/2009 2:00:00 AM 1.0

1903 1/16/2009 3:00:00 AM -1.0

1904 1/16/2009 4:00:00 AM -2.1

1905 1/16/2009 5:00:00 AM -3.4

1906 1/16/2009 6:00:00 AM -4.2

1907 1/16/2009 7:00:00 AM -4.4

1908 1/16/2009 8:00:00 AM -4.4

1909 1/16/2009 9:00:00 AM -3.9

1910 1/16/2009 10:00:00 AM 5.4

1911 1/16/2009 11:00:00 AM 13.7

Calculating degree days is really quite simple. First, you establish a temperature that you define as comfortable – a benchmark. Usually, the temperature selected is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, you subtract the temperature recorded from 65 and divide that result by 24, the number of hourly readings taken during the day. Adding up the resulting figures gives you the heating degree days for that day. Adding up the results for 5 months of results gives you the heating degree days for the heating season. Tedious? Yes. But I think it will be well-worth it in terms of winter comfort and money spent for heating fuel or electricity.

This small portion of the data yields 43.65 heating degree days and is not even a full 24 hour period. I have a lot of work ahead of me and if I had known better how to use the software before deploying the devices, I probably could have imported the data into an Excel spreadsheet and had Excel do the calculations for me. But I don’t know how to use Excel very well, either, so I’ll just plod along. There is no particular hurry – the logging on the site won’t start until around the first of October.

The Woods in Summer

Jeff — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:13:23 +0000

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 and that Floyd in the summertime was lush and green, I had no way of knowing what they were talking about until I came this time and saw for myself. Indeed! Well-tended woods are navigable, no doubt, but my property is infested with multiflora rose and oriental bittersweet, which makes for dense, impenetrable thickets. Thus, the need for the Bull Hog, the results of which you saw in previous posts. If I had seen the property in the summer, I might not have bought it, but I own it now. Perhaps I should say that it owns me! I have experience battling invasive exotics and I’m sure I’ll be busy for awhile, but eventually, I’ll get the invasives under control and the woods will be quite walkable. Before I brought in the Bull Hog, friends told me that the best way to deal with the exotics was through “hand-to-hand” combat. I’ve done that before – it is quite tedious but it is also very effective. Unfortunately, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with multiflora rose will result in you bleeding to death!

One day, my property will look more like these pictures taken of the driveway than it does now:

Michael Shortt built the driveway and used a fabric called Geo Textile under the sub-base to prevent the clay from coming up through the sub-base and causing it to prematurely fail. I’m not sure if the fabric helped the driveway to hold up better under this Spring’s heavy rains or not (I have read that it does help by allowing the water to run off more easily) but I do know that a combination of a not-too-steep slope, a very well built driveway, and perhaps the fabric resulted in an intact driveway. Michael is another highly recommended contractor in Floyd County. He is a busy man and you may have to wait awhile before he can get to your project, but he is definitely worth the wait!

Here is a view into the densely shaded woods from the top of the hill in the summertime:

Compare it to this view in an earlier post. Quite a dramatic difference, eh?

The House Site

Jeff — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:32:34 +0000

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 his work, we were uncertain of the exact location of the boundary line and after the boundary line was surveyed by Chris Pappas of Green Forests Surveys in Blacksburg (whom Jeff recommended), I came to the conclusion that the house site was a tad too close to the property line for my comfort. My neighbor plans to build a “get away” cabin on her property and I’d just as soon have a few hundred feet of room between her little place and my little place! I paid dearly for not following Jeff’s advice regarding the construction of my driveway and I hope that changing the site for my house will not prove equally disastrous. But there really aren’t many good house sites on the property and I think I can make this site work. My decision is not set in stone, but I’m pretty confident that the site I picked will be quite satisfactory. Jeff has become a good friend and you’ll not find a more honest contractor in Floyd County.

I had John Sutherland’s son, J.R., clear some rough swaths of ground in the general vicinity of where I think the house might be located:

As you can see, the Bull Hog does chew up the woods pretty effectively. The long logs lying on the ground are Black Locust which were probably felled by Hurricane Hugo when it spun through Floyd County in 1989. It is hard to see in the last picture, but there is a good-sized pile of rocks in the center background. Here is a closer view of the rocks:

The rocks were obviously placed there by humans, but I don’t know when that happened. I talked to Terry Thompson, a Realtor in Floyd, for whose family Thompson Road is named. He told me that his father, who is now 80, remembers when my property was the site of the baseball field for the Check and Floyd teams. I’m guessing that that would have been in the mid-1940s, so perhaps this pile of rocks is related to that time. After J.R. was finished with his Bull Hog work, he and I walked around a bit and we discovered an apple tree not too far from this pile of rocks. I subsequently discovered another apple tree not too far away from the first one and it was of the same variety, though I do not know what kind it is. The apples are too small at this time to make that determination, at least for me. I learned from June Damanti’s experience that apple trees are not self-pollinating and that they require a different variety of apple tree for the flowers to be fertilized. Perhaps that means that more apple trees are hiding amongst the multiflora rose thickets and oriental bittersweet vines? Who knows? I didn’t see any evidence of the remains of a house foundation in this area, but the vines and stickweed or wingstem are so thick that I will wait until winter to investigate further. In the meantime, perhaps I will contact the folks at the Floyd County History Society to see if I can learn more about the history of the property.

The Bull Hog

Jeff — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:37:46 +0000

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 understandably gun shy when it came to engaging contractors to do work for me. After talking to my friends, though, I decided to proceed with my project and hired John Sutherland, who owns a Bull Hog, which is made by Fecon. Some friends opined that this is not a machine to be used in the woods, but given the nature of my site and the work that I wanted done, it seemed to be my only option. John promised to be onsite on the morning of June 24th and he was, minus his machine, unfortunately. He had hit a rock (not an uncommon occurrence, as I was to find out) and the impact had broken a tooth on the machine and caused the drum to vibrate so badly since it was out of balance that the machine was not operable. He had to send the drum to Ohio to be repaired and re-balanced and told me that he expected it to be back and re-installed on the machine by noon on the 25th. True to his word, it was, and he commenced work about noon on the 25th.

Here is a shot that I took of the business end of the Bull Hog:

The drum spins at about 2,000 rpm and, as you can see by looking at the ground beneath the machine, reduces most of what it encounters to mulch.

I asked John and his son, J.R., to pose for a picture before starting their work:

John is standing on the machine to the left and his son is standing to the right.

I wanted the boundary lines cleared so that the logger I have hired can more easily access the woods as he uses snatch blocks and winches to haul logs out of the the property. I have hired a man who is going to sensitively log the property – I had wanted to have Jason Rutledge to do the work, but he was unable to do it for me and connected me to a friend of his who shares Jason’s philosophy of being a “biological woodsman.”

John set to work and within a very short time, had cleared both boundary lines:

When he reached the property corner, John turned and headed for my neighbor’s pasture:

Note the thick tangle of Oriental Bittersweet and Multiflora Rose, behind and to the right of the machine. I asked John to clear this patch out on his return trip back up the path that he had cleared. This is what that patch looked like after John finished:

With all the sunlight, I’m sure that my friends are right that there will be an “explosion” of new growth, but I’m reasonably certain that I will be able to manage it with the use of a bush hog. I had been in Floyd during the winter and early Spring, so I was familiar with what the thickets of multiflora rose looked like, but I was entirely unprepared for the dense thickets of Oriental Bittersweet. Fortunately, Oriental Bittersweet has no thorns on it, so it can be cut at or near ground level with loppers during the winter and set back pretty severely.

I also had John and his son cut some trails through some other areas of my property so that the logger would have easier access to areas that he needs to work in, but since this post is getting a tad long, I’ll make that the subject of the next post.

If you think you would like to have this kind of work done on your property, I will say that I was very pleased with the work that John and his son did for me. They are honest, perform what they say they will do when they say they will do it, and charge a reasonable price for their work. They were also very careful to follow my instructions on what I wanted done and did not try to clear more than I asked to be cleared so that they could make more money. I can’t think of a higher compliment for a contractor.

A Cautionary Tale

Jeff — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:20:35 +0000

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 in that right-of-way so that I could get to my property. And therein lies the explanation for my recent lack of posts.

On December 29, 2008, I received what is known as a “Warrant-in-Debt” from the Commonwealth of Virginia in Richmond. That turned out to be a lawsuit which was filed against me by a contractor (not the one who built the driveway!!) in Floyd County who alleged that I had entered into a “verbal contract” with him to build the driveway. He was asking for $5,140.50 in damages. Needless to say, this did not make me very happy. I hired an attorney, bought plane tickets, rented a vehicle, and appeared in court in Floyd County on February 12. I lost the case, but I “only” had to pay $750 plus court costs of $69.

I had some very good friends who testified on my behalf, which I deeply appreciate. If not for them, I most likely would have had to pay much more. There are some very fine people in Floyd County, but there is at least one very bad apple who I am quite sure will not be giving my name out as a reference!

So. In the “words to the wise” department: If you are going to do business in Floyd County, VA, here is what I would recommend:

1. Talk to your network of friends to determine who is honest and reliable and who is not. Do not rely on newspaper advertisements or websites when selecting a contractor to do work for you.

2. Be very, very careful to document everything you say to a person you are considering hiring. Do not, under any circumstances, say anything that could be interpreted as a verbal contract because under Virginia law, a verbal contract, in all but a very few circumstances, is as good as a written contract. Better yet, advise, from the beginning, in your conversations with anyone you are contemplating hiring, that you do not do verbal contracts.

3. Be certain that you execute a properly prepared contract (take the contract to your lawyer if you are not sure) and demand proof of insurance before allowing any contractor to commence work.

4. Be aware that there is something called “rough country justice” in Floyd County. As a defendant in a lawsuit, you may be completely innocent and still end up with the short end of the stick. I imagine that this is a particular hazard for anyone who does not have a network of friends in Floyd County or is “not from around here”, as I am.

5. Know that under Virginia law, it is illegal for a contractor to perform work without a written contract. There are contractors in Floyd County that work without written contracts – avoid those contractors at all costs.

If you don’t learn from my experiences, then shame on you!

Realizing a Life’s Dream, Part 2

Jeff — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:06:11 +0000

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?

This view is taken by turning around from the place the previous picture was taken from and looking up towards the top of the hill.

This is the temporary end of the road, where I had the turnaround built. The pile of debris straight ahead are the stumps that were removed from the route of the driveway. The next step is to get a surveyor to stake two property lines and mark the trees closest to the boundary with blue blazes so that Jason Rutledge can perform his “worst first” forestry later in the Spring. After that is done, I will have a better idea of where the house site will be and the route for extending the driveway.

Realizing a Life’s Dream

Jeff — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:36:37 +0000

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 South Florida in 1992, it was badly infested with two exotic vines: air potato and gold coast jasmine. For three years, on a nearly daily basis, I worked to get these vines under control. I succeeded with the air potato but experience ongoing re-infestations of gold coast jasmine due to a substantial population of raccoons. My dreams of building a house, however, were dashed by the ruinous taxation levels of this area and by soaring property values. While those property values are on their way down, the cost of building, combined with property taxes, makes it prohibitive to consider such an idea in retirement.

Enter Floyd County, Virginia. Many folks have asked me how I, a foreigner who knew no one in Floyd County, came to find the place. The short answer is that I saw an article in the Asheville Citizen-Times (I was considering buying property in the Asheville area) that touted Floyd as the closest town in the United States to the European “slow-city” movement. I had no idea what a “slow-city” movement was, but it sounded intriguing and so I launched an Internet search for Floyd County. Because I am an artist, among other things, I was even more intrigued when I discovered that Floyd County had a substantial population of artists working in every imaginable medium: words, clay, metal, wood, beads, fabric, dance, music, theatre, photography, painting, and other mediums that I have yet to be introduced to. There are also a number of organic farmers with Community Supported Agriculture plans available and many folks have large gardens and know how to can fruits and vegetables. Floyd County is not a paradise, though — there is severe poverty and some friction between those who have lived there for generations and those “not from around here.” But there are also a large number of opportunities to get involved with the community and make friends. Hooked, I made my first trip to Floyd County in the spring of 2007 and was mightily impressed. At the Jacksonville Center, I met a young woman who convinced me to risk taking a wood sculpture class at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington, PA, in the summer of 2007. When I came back to Floyd in the fall of 2007, I still felt an enormous attraction to the area and set out to find property. Eventually, I found what I hope will be the place where I will finally be able to build my cozy little “neat” house.

The property is on a south facing gentle slope and is heavily wooded with second growth hardwoods. The parcel had been “high-graded” (the best trees were harvested) perhaps 50 years ago, so I was left with another ecosystem that needed to be restored. The first step was to clear the trees for a route for an access road into the property, a project admirably completed by one of my neighbors, who needed firewood. My most recent trip to Floyd County (and the reason for the recent hiatus in posting to this blog), resulted in making the final arrangements for getting the road built.

Here is a picture looking up the hill:

And a picture looking down the hill:

For the time being, until I pick out a house site, I’ve decided to create a turnaround area high up on the south-facing slope:

Finally, a view into the woods. The trees that have multiple trunks are called “coppiced” trees and are evidence that the original tree was cut down with sprouts from the stump creating the multiple trunks:

For anyone who has property in Floyd County and is contemplating building, I have had some experiences that I would be happy to share. Contact me off-line.

Next spring, Jason Rutledge, of the Healing Harvest Forestry Foundation, will use his horses to selectively cut the trees on the site, following his philosophy of “worst tree first” logging, to improve the timber stand. After that happens, I will have a better idea of the “lay of the land” and be able to make a decision about where to create a house site.