hedgerow beginnings

A good friend gave us some baby rhododendrons. It is the start of our hedgerow between our property and our east neighbor's property.

 I had hostas that needed dividing, so I added them in while I was busy transplanting.

 On a whim we bought a blue princess holly.  It is rated for a hardiness zone of 5, so we are taking a chance on it. If it survives, we'll get a blue prince holly so we can continue to have holly berries in the fall.

Another friend is going to give us a white lilac and some rugosa roses.

I'm thinking about trying to find beach plums and planting them. 

retaining walls done

The last (east) retaining wall in the basement is complete. No more hauling buckets of sand out of the basement to mix concrete and cement. No more hauling buckets of concrete and cement into the basement.

We'll haul the cement mixer into the basement for mixing concrete for the slab.

so close

The retaining walls in the basement are almost finished. We have spent the month of August (and it has been a beautiful month) in the basement working on the cement block walls.

 The west retaining wall is completed, insulated, and back filled with sand. Martin has also built a cement block post to support the center beam.

 The retaining wall on the north east side of the house is at its fullest height. Today, Martin finished insulating it.

 To be able to dig out the sand below the center support wall, Martin had to use a come-along to tie the foundation (rock below it also) to the center beam about so it is temporarily supporting itself.

 The southeast retaining wall is completed and insulated. The picture above only shows it half finished.

 Martin is hoping to frame in the footer and pour the foundation tomorrow for the center section of the east wall. The south section of the east retaining wall is the depth of a cement block further into the basement because of how the wall was built on the south side of the house to accommodate the bulkhead stairs. Martin will have to finagle the walls to make them meet and to provide support for the center beam wall.

regrading, a long process

There is reasonably decent topsoil where the driveway is going to go. (As decent as topsoil at an tigin can get) The topsoil is in short supply in other areas. One of my jobs, when I'm not mixing mortar, or concrete, or shoveling sand, or..... is to move topsoil.

I dig it out, load it into a wheelbarrow, and move it to its final destination.

 Before the new topsoil gets dumped, the area topsoil and subsoil are dug out and moved.  Then buckets of sand (hauled from the basement) are dumped into the resulting hole until the grade is much higher than it started out. 

 Martin gets to tamp and roll the sand. Next I get to shovel the subsoil back on top of the sand. After it is tamped and rolled, the new and original topsoil get spread on it.

As you can see, the entire side yard needs to be higher.  It looks like my summer and fall are going to be filled with wheelbarrows of topsoil, subsoil, and sand.

half pint mason tender

Martin got a cement mixer. After spending some time refurbishing it so it works better.

Then I had the pleasure of being the one to use it.

A mason tender is supposed to do the prep work so the mason can just keep on working. Unfortunately, I am so small that I can't lift the 94 pound bag of Portland cement or the buckets of gravel and sand that need to go into the cement mixer. Martin had to prep the materials for me (half buckets and a way to measure the Portland cement) so that I could actually use the cement mixer.

Once the concrete was made, Martin dumped it into a tub, shoveled it into buckets, and hauled it into the basement to pour the footers.

 At some point, we (meaning Martin) will be hauling the cement mixer into the basement so we can use it to mix concrete for the slab. Lots to do before we get that far.

bucket by bucket

We started with no basement. One of our neighbors helped dig out most of the current basement with his back hoe. Unfortunately he couldn't get the whole basement dug, so we are left finishing it off bucket by bucket. It doesn't seem like we are making much progress at this point, but the basement work is just one small step forward at a time.

We start with a section of the basement that has too much sand still. I fill buckets and Martin hauls them up the basement stairs and empties them where we are raising the grade around the house. 

 Once we get enough sand removed to allow Martin to pour a footer, we need to build a temporary sandbag wall to hold back the sand that is still there.

 Then we (meaning Martin) dig out a trench and put in a form for the footer.

Then we mix up a bunch of concrete and fill the form.  Hauling the buckets of concrete down into the basement and bring sand back up to be mixed in the concrete.

Once the footer has set up, we lay 3 courses of block and put solid insulation in behind it.

Then the sandbags get rescued (to be used for the next section).  As we dig out the next section, we dump buckets of sand behind the new wall to back fill.

 Then the last 3 courses of block get laid and insulated with more sand to back fill behind the wall.

We are trying not to haul too much sand up and out of the basement. Not only is it a slow tedious and physically exhausting job, but we need to have enough sand to back fill behind all of the retaining walls. One of the benefits of having so much sand is that we can use it when we make concrete and mortar mix for laying block. The biggest disadvantage is that we frequently have cave-ins. Remember those golden childhood days on the beach making sand castles. Dry sand just doesn't work well for building.

grading is coming along

The regrading of the front lawn is nearly done.  The area closest to the house will have pavers for a path from the driveway to the front porch and continuing to the bulkhead doors.

basement retaining wall, west side

I spent a couple of days digging sand so Martin would have access to the correct floor level to be able to pour a footer for the retaining wall we need to put in.

Because the ground is sand, we couldn't jack up the house and dig the foundation to the full basement depth. We need to step back, build a retaining wall, and then pour a slab.

 After I dug down to the right depth and dug out the length of half of the retaining wall, Martin decided that he needed more room to work in the basement.  He spent a couple of days hauling sand out of the basement in buckets.

 He got the footer poured. Then I had the pleasure of being a mason tender again. Half of the west side retaining wall is in. 

 It looks like I'll be digging in the basement again, so footers can be poured for the rest of the wall.

In the mean time, Martin has put hard insulation behind the finished retaining wall. Eventually we will back fill to bring the sand up to the bottom of the foundation. For now though, this corner needs to be fairly open because our water pipe and electrical lines are coming in here.

hedgerow for privacy, ideas welcome

The fence line is 8 rods (or 132 feet, or 40.2336 meters) long. The last 6 feet will be where our compost bin is going to be built. So I need to fill in about 126 feet of hedgerow.

Along the fence between our house and the neighbor to the east, we would like to put in a hedgerow to allow for some privacy between the two properties. (This picture was taken near the road facing the back of the property.)

I have two lilacs that I transplanted. Obviously I need to add lots more.

I have a friend who is going to give me a few rhododendrons. I'll put those toward the property.  I was thinking of adding some elderberry bushes, some more lilacs (white, pink, other colors).

Martin is determined to have blackthorn, because it is a common hedge in Ireland.

I also thought that maybe mountain ash would be a nice addition also.

Mainly I want a variety of bushes and small trees that will provide color throughout the season, whether with blossoms, berries, or foliage, and to have the hedge be dense enough so that it provides the privacy that we are looking for.

 I am also considering hydrangea.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions. Most of the plants I am considering blossom in the spring, which leaves the summer and fall a little barren of blooms.

original outhouse

Martin discovered the original outhouse. It was located at the back of this section of flooring that he has taken out of the barn. It contained a calendar from the 1960s, so we are assuming that is when it was closed in and the new outhouse added to the opposite (back also) corner of the barn.

In the process of taking out this bit of flooring, Martin hauled another half ton of garbage and old boards out.

finishing the basement

Right now the basement is partially dug out. The foundation walls are in, but the rest of the basement needs to be finished. 

 Because we are working with sand, we couldn't dig down the 6 feet and 8 inches that we needed for a full basement, so the foundation walls are about 3 feet deep. We need to dig out the rest of the depth, but 3 - 4 feet in from the foundation wall we put in. Then we will build half walls. After those walls are finished, we will put in slabs that go from the top of the half walls to the bottom of the foundation walls.

 We will have a center area of the basement that will be the full depth of 6 feet 8 inches and it will be about 14 feet wide.  The north end of the basement, under the 11 foot addition we put on, will be closer to a "full" basement.

 This is what we are starting with.  It looks like this week we will get started with pouring footers for the half walls and laying block.

regrading

We have a couple of major problems with the property at an tigin. To start with, the house is on the lowest part of the property, so all of the yards slope toward the house. Not so good for keeping moisture away from the basement.

The second issue is that we have sand that goes a mile deep. There is a very thin layer of sandy top soil, then sand, sand, and more sand. 

 Martin has decided that we need to take up the sod, dig up any usable top soil, raise the grade with all of the extra sand that we have, and then put the top soil back down.  At some point we will bring in manure to enrich what little top soil there is and then I get to plant flowers.

 We've started raising the grade in the front yard and removing the sod and top soil from the side yard. It is a long slow laborious project.