Going Off Grid in East Tennessee; The Story and Chat Thread (snake, summers)

[Ketabcha]

Originally Posted by Jaxson

Love the updates and glad Niki got into one of the pics too.

Not only did Niki get into the picture but managed to be in the shade, too. That's one smart pup.

[SeabeeBones]

Lisa, I hope your paver knows what they are doing. On your steep hills pavement can have the tendency to roll down(creeping) the hill in hot weather. Look around stop lights on hills in some towns. You will find in some areas the pavement has started rolling down the hill from heaver vehicles breaking at the light causing rolls like a wash board and in some of these areas they have replaced it with concrete. It probably can be solved with different mix design ratios of the mixture as well a thicker pavement. Most roads are 10-12 inches while driveways are 4 inches. Please get some type of guarante.

So far so good on your home. Looks great. lots of envy on my part.

Would you guys have consider extending the overhang on the gutter side of the house if you had to do it all over again? Yes it is quite easy being a arm chair builder. I do it to myself all the time. Kind of like when I was putting hardi board siding on my house here in west TN and I shot a nail into the copper a/c line. I knew it was there I just forgot about it. Two rows left from finishing. I was lucky the AC guy used my 22 Freon to refill it after he fixed the hole. Otherwise my $140 bill would have been a lot more at $30 a pound.

Keep up the good work Bones

[JEANNE61]

I AGREE with nomadicus . . . it SHOULD be nominated . .what else on CD is anywhere near as interesting ?.( or funny btw .). . personally, i think the old saying '' if anything will go wrong , it will'' (something like that anyway.. Mr Murphy said it much better ) definitely applies to the two of you and this 'build' that you've been on all this time .(THIS ADVENTURE) . every time you g et something done , or started, for that matter, something else happens to make it harder for the both of u .... eg, the awnings, the umbrellas, the cows after the first part of the fence was put up . . .et c, etc ,etc, ad nauseum ... (sp?) poor kid .. and you still manage to keep your sense of humor .. GOD BLESS YOU GIRL !!!! KEEP ON TRUCKIN' ..

i was in NY and PA from the (9/16th to the 30 and thought of you both on the way home .. on i 40 .. not sure where you are but those mountain views in that area are beautiful .. . i envy you .. the views NOT the weather . . i'll take the west ) (Adamsville)
see ya next time .. Jeanne

[ylisa7]

Good morning everyone. I will write back to all of your responses for this past week after this story. I hope you all had a wonderful week and now it's time to go back.


8-10
Yay. Today is the first day of work for our paving crew. They have a lot of prep work before they can even start the paving. They have to tear up the majority of our old large gravel so they can make a more solid base for the pavement.

Here is the side driveway scraped of our old gravel.



Next they start working on the back parking area. Here they are digging out the dirt and gravel.




It takes all day just to get the driveway and the back parking area scraped. Here is the driveway ready to go.



They took all of the gravel that they scraped up and spread it along the rest of our driveway. They also added some extra gravel and dirt to our pond wall.

After they left for the day, Mike and I went down to check out the pond wall. When we got there we saw a package at the gate. Woo hoo it must be our 2nd awning. We get the package and head back to the house.


Here is Mike standing on the pond wall.



We get back up to the house and open the awning. Oh no. They sent a different color. Well it looks like we will have to send it back and hopefully they will get it right the 3rd time around.


Later on Mike, Niki, and I go for a walk. We took a break and sat on a knoll in front of our house watching the deer. While we were sitting there I heard a "whoosh" from behind. I turned around just in time to see 6 deer running by us about 5 feet away. It happened so fast. I think the deer were as startled as us. It was really cool.


8-11
The paving crew is back. Today they have to run trucks of gravel and pack it down before they can lay the asphalt.


Our first load of gravel coming up the driveway.



Dumping the gravel so the guys can spread it out.



While we are waiting for the next load of gravel the workers start spreading and packing our walkway.



One and a half hours later we get the second load of gravel. Oh this is going to be a long couple of weeks. They only have 1 driver today and it's a long way to the gravel pit.


This is the load they dumped and spread in our parking area behind the house.



That's all the gravel we got for today. One of the workers took the roller outside our gate and got it stuck. Why he went outside our gate and onto the grass is beyond me. All day he was backing it onto the walkway but not this last time. So that's all for today's work.


It rained that night. Not good.


8-12
Five guys showed p this morning to get their roller out. Only problem is they didn't bring any chains, vehicles, or equipment. So of course it is Mike to the rescue.


Here is Mike getting them unstuck with our tractor and our chains.



It amazes me how unprepared some contractors are. How does anyone ever get work done when they don't have homeowner(or Jimmy's) help.

Since it's another rainy day the contractors left. hopefully they will be back tomorrow to work.


That afternoon Mike, Nike, and I went for another walk. This time I took my camera. First we spotted a deer but i couldn't get close enough for a good picture.



Then we walked along the ridge line and up to the top. Niki was a little hot shot running ahead of us. All of a sudden she stopped dead in her tracks and came running back to us. As we kept walking we found out what spooked her. She stumbled across 2 turkeys fighting. The poor little pug.


We made it onto the old logging road and down to the entrance to our property. On the path we found an awesome and unusual tree. The trunk of the tree comes out of the ground but instead of growing vertically it grew at a bend. At the top of the bend 2 trunks are growing straight up and that part of the tree isn't in the ground. I tried to take a couple of pictures but it isn't really clear.



In this one, you can see the trunks are growing up and not attached to the ground at this point.


Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool.

That was just another quickie update. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I will write again next Monday.

Lisa

[ylisa7]

Originally Posted by Gatti

I'm getting quite fond of those nosy cows...they would make a great subject for a childran's book. You can write that in your spare time :-D

I really do like the cows but they are strange animals, lol. They are very nosey and the stare a lot.

Originally Posted by cassy1

Oh your view is so beautiful Lisa, I could just sit and look at it, must be beautiful at sunset.

Thank you cassy.

Originally Posted by Jaxson

Love the updates and glad Niki got into one of the pics too. Oh I agree with Nomad's post also.

That is very sweet.

Originally Posted by CA Sweet Pea

I had to laugh out loud at this one. All the time thinking this must be Lisa's face .....

Ha, ha. Yeah that was me, lol.


Maverick- Welcome and thank you for writing in. Mike's tractor is the smaller blue one. It has come in handy many many times. I think it's Mike's favorite toy, lol.

We really didn't know how much power we would need. To start with we tried to figure out how to cut back on usage first. No extra lights in the house. You know the ones I mean. The microwave light, the TV clock, the stove clock, anything that was "on" when not in use we got rid of. We knew we wouldn't be able to run A/C without using more panels than could fit on our roof so we built the house into the hill.

We took the windmills down because they we didn't have enough consistent wind and they also require more maintenance than the solar panels.

We don't have the option of selling back to our electric company. You also have to be grid tied to do that and we wanted to keep people out and be more self sufficient. Yes I love not having a monthly bill and not worrying about a power outage. But we do have to be careful especially in the winter and long periods of cloudy days, like we have had lately. It means if the sun isn't out I don't use the hairdryer, the microwave, or the washing machine. When it is sunny you can do almost anything. Our power is stored in batteries. We can go almost 2 weeks without sun. We got low on power about 2 weeks ago but we made it through.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific about our usage and how much we produce. Mike and I aren't very technical. If it works we are good. If not we change it. We do a lot of trial and error, lol. You can find out exactly what we used for our system in the story. I'll try to find the last "solar" update for you.

Does anyone remember what chapter that was?

[hiknapster]

Hey Lisa, I like the pic of your ceramic frog looking at the workers. We should put a bubble of dialogue over his head that says, "What a bunch of bozos."

[piperspal]

Another great update, Lisa! Love that unusual tree...and it looks like your grass and clover have come in real nice.

[Ketabcha]

Lisa, you should send the pictures of the unusual way that tree is growing to National Geographic Magazine. I think they would use it in the magazine. Both shots are good and the tree is so unusual.

[cassy1]

Thank you for your update Lisa, it is so green I envy you that beauty and seeing the deer, oh heaven must be like that

[Pam& Bill]

Great update and what an odd tree. I look forward to each Monday morning.
Pam