Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Life changes...

Well, as you have all probably noticed, I haven't really been maintaining the blog as I once did.  Again, there have been some serious changes in my life.  Last year around Valentine's Day I met a wonderful woman whom I married on April 26th of this year!  I now have two new children, a warm-hearted 11 year-old boy and a beautiful 8 year-old blonde angel.  We don't live in the house highlighted in this blog, but work is still progressing.  I am at "the farm" daily, taking care of business and we all spend weekends there and take care of business together!

Missed the fly-in...again.

I just realized that for the second year in a row I missed Mark Smith's annual ultralight fly-in in Mount Vernon, Indiana!  I was aware in mid-June that I wouldn't be able to make it this year but just now realized the event, which is held the last weekend in June, has now passed.  It's a great time and I hope I can make it next year!

Monday, July 01, 2013

A bit of progress toward the runway.

Over the weekend, I cut down 17 trees that were growing in the area that my runway will occupy.  Most were under about 6" in diameter, but I had a couple of Oak logs that were large enough to mill into lumber.  I also had a pine log or two that will be large enough to make some siding for the house.

It's good to see progress towards the ultimate goal, but these days it is few and far between.  In the coming months I'm going to be cutting down a bunch more trees.  When I turn the larger trees into lumber and burn the smaller ones to dispose of them, the cut and fill and grading of the runway will begin!  It's been a long time in coming, but the end is close enough now that I can see the light!

Below is a view looking from the east side of the house towards the end of the runway.  In this picture I still haven't dragged the logs off to the burning pile.  See that single tree in the "V" shaped opening?  That is near the end of the runway.  My phone camera doesn't show much depth but that will be near the end of the runway.


The picture below was taken after all the trees were taken to the burn pile.  Oh yeah, you can see my newly acquired tractor in the photo as well, a 1988 Ford 3910.  It's a great little tractor and the clearing I've been doing wouldn't have been possible without it!