The lot work is done. There's some stuff the guys will haul away tomorrow or Tuesday. They ran out of room on the truck.
The field is seeded and strawed. Should start to see some grass in about two weeks.
They guys got sick and tired of hauling wood. So they left some in the back woods.
Yep - the stack is taller than me. But then, most things are.
Oh, BTW
At dusk yesterday, Nuke was on the back deck having a smoky treat. Stuck his head in the door and said "Come out here, but be quiet".
We see doe all the time. Everybody sees does all the time.
This was a stag. Fairly young - 2 points - antlers about a foot long or so.
First one I've seen in the yard in at least three or four years.
Food
We ate well this weekend.
Friday night, Hazel fixed old fashioned spaghetti sauce. Tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, ground beef. That with some garlic bread – we were stuffed. (Leftovers Sunday night - yummy.)
Saturday morning I set up a bar-b-que. I dragged the gas grill / smoker into the yard and gave it a thorough cleaning. Went and got the spare tank filled. Made some simple eastern NC vinegar sauce (cider vinegar, brown sugar, kosher salt, red pepper flakes).
I had picked up a whole pork shoulder from Nahunta on the way home from work and put him on the grill around noon.
(BTW – way too much for the four of us. I should have gotten a Boston Butt – about half the size of a whole shoulder. There’s a lot of leftover pork in the freezer.)
I put some water and white vinegar in the drip pan under the shoulder. The drippings combined with the liquid and helped smoke and steam the pork to help it flavor and make it tenderer.
We pulled him off the grill around 1800. Some had bbq sammiches (w/cole slaw); some just had chopped pork. We also had fresh corn on the cob from the Farmer’s Market. Pound cake and ice cream for dessert.
They were up for a competition being held in Sanford.
I watched for a while on this morning. It's a really cool avocation and a lot of fun to watch. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement and appreciation of the training and skills. Just like you can "get into" any other sport like football or basketball.
Here are owners / handlers familiarizing themselves with the course before one of the sets of runs.
This is practice area.
This is one of the waiting areas. Kind of like "The Pits" in auto racing.
Folks relaxing before the start of the trials.
And finally, a couple of videos of the competitions.
This first video is almost a good run. Started out great, but the dog lost his focus at the weaving station.
Here's a good run.
Notice the time stamp on this post. I went to the trials, stayed a while, then came home to do chores (yard work) and to post this entry.
Yep - it's just before 1100. The competitions start around 0800. Most of the entrants show up at the venue very early to get set up, practice and prepare. Ward says 0600 is not unusual.
I have a fireplace for which I buy a load of firewood each year.
I get the firewood delivered in the spring so it will have time to season for the following winter.
Here's this year's stack of wood ready for this winter. This is about the amount I'll burn during a typical winter. Sometimes a little less.
When discussing the drain field work and which trees needed to come down, GJ (Maple Hill Farms) said he'd have the guys cut up the usable wood and stack it. Later they'll bring a splitter and spit it up for me.
That's a great idea. Saves the cost of hauling off the wood. Plus - wood to burn.
Today, when I pulled in the driveway - I started laughing so hard my side hurt. The sight that greeted me struck me as "Holy Cow!" funny.
Before and almost After photos of my home's drain field area.
First photo taken in May. Notice how nice and full the clover is?
In June, an early heat wave and mini-drought killed off most of it. Second photo taken today after work.
On to the post -
Living in the country means I don't have connection to a Municipal Sewer System. (I do have water via the city / county water system).
The typical rural single house system is a septic tank with drain field.
When I built my house, North Carolina was reacting to a number of large multi-home on-site system failures. These systems were promoted by a "certain" company that was building and installing ground systems serving whole neighbourhoods and communities.
Well - I'm a Civil Engineer and I knew that large scale application of these systems were bull*&%t. Or rather, human*&%t.
Back then I was in private practice. I encountered that "certain" company on a few occasions.
One project was a subdivision where I had to come in and design a municipal system in place of an idiotic (and very expensive - $354,000 as I recall) Rube Goldberg* system the other company / consultant had designed and was trying to foist off on the developer.
My design came in around $225,000. Gravity lines and manholes, duel lift station and force main.
It wasn't that big of a deal subdivision / project at the time. So I'm not exact about my system cost - but 225k is in the ballpark. I do remember that my design also handled over three as many homes as the "idiotic" system.
And - we're talking mid 1990's dollars.
The development / subdivision was (is) in Wake Forest - off US 1 - North of Raleigh.
But - I digress.
A lot of those Rube Goldberg* systems failed and there were some pretty serious repercussions - in terms of both environment and cost.
Heavy regulation followed which trickled down (pun intended) to individual homeowner systems. Which hadn't been a problem. Classic case of overreaction and subsequent over regulation.
Anyway - my house construction got caught in the middle of it.
Instead of a simple septic tank and drain field - my house (under the then "new" rules and guidelines) required a huge drain field, imported dirt (for improved percolation) and the soil scientist identified the ideal drain field location uphill from my house.
Which required a two tank system with pump, equalizing pressure manifold and timed dosing system. It's what's known in the industry as a Low Pressure Pipe (LPP) system.
I built my house 12 years ago. At that time - a simple tank and drain field cost around $2,000 or so. My LPP system cost a whopping $8,000.
LPP systems are classified as 'commercial / public' by definition which means my system has to be "operated" by a licensed operator. In my case, that means the operator comes by twice a year - checks everything out - and sends reports to the County Health Department.
Over time, however, I neglected my drain field. I didn't keep it cut and cleared. Eventually the vegetation took over to the point where I had small trees growing in it. That is BAD. In all capital letters.
The past two weeks - I've been having the field restored. Since there are small PVC pipes just below the ground - you can't go in there and knock things down with a bulldozer. Everything has to be done by 'hand'. Care has to be taken to not damage the pipe system. Machinery has to be specialized and lightweight just for this application.
Fortunately, I've found the perfect company to fix my field - a landscaping company out of Siler City called Maple Hill Farms (no web site).
Those guys have been working carefully for 2 weeks. They are also taking out about a dozen dead and dying trees since they're already here.
The coolest thing was watching them smooth, till, and grind down small tree stumps and roots with a machine that I can only compare to a Zamboni. Except it's for dirt.
Basically the trees and undergrowth have been all cut down by hand. Fine chipped and spread back out. The rest of the weeds, brush, etc. mowed down and spread around. Then the Zamboni thingy mulches / tills / grinds / and smooths the soil.
I'm told my drain field (1/2 acre active field + 1/2 acre reserve field) will end up being a really nice lawn.
Cost so far? $5,850 and counting.
BTW - Eventually sanity returned to the sizing, design, permitting and installation of individual home septic systems.
If my house were built today - it would likely be a regular single tank with a gravity drain field about 2,000 square foot in size.
If the soil really did require an LPP system - the active drain field size would increase to about 3,000 or 4,000 square feet. NOT the 1/2 acre my system has.
Yep - the drain field for my system is about 6 times the size it needs to be. Click on the photo - there's a guy standing in the filed. That will give you an idea of the size.
Sometimes I can be full of s*#@. LOL. But it would take me and a small army to crap enough to need a field that size.
*Note - Speaking of Rube Goldberg and apropos of nothing - here's a happy video:
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted. Well, there just hasn’t been anything of real interest going on.
I went to the beach the July 4th weekend. Hung out with Nuke and his folks. A couple of hamburger cookouts, watched fireworks at the Marina and that's about it. Low key, relaxing weekend.
On the home front, the contractors came today and repaired my fireplace / chimney. I had a small chimney fire back in March. Damaged the flue.
They replaced the flue, repaired some cracks in the firebox. Fixed the ventilation fan switch (it hasn’t worked for at least 5 years or more – lol). And did some other maintenance and upkeep items.
These guys were professional. They had everything laid out and ready to go. No wondering around and head scratching – they knew exactly what they were going to do and how to do it.
Job was done in less than 5 hours.
About $2,100 altogether.
Work is pretty much the same. Nothing new or unusual to report.
Let’s see – I’ve booked a cruise for November. Actually I booked it a couple months ago. DB and O are going along with DB’s mom. JTN is going too.
