News

Coming back to the design process after a couple weeks away. Lots has happened!

At the annual meeting, the site plan, the kitchen plan, and the financial plan were approved. The financial plan is to raise and borrow money enough to build as much of the project this summer as possible. This means putting in the well, septic system, water distribution system, foundations and hopefully the structures themselves. The meeting also agreed to get the permanent privy in this summer.

So, there are lots of things to be done and decisions to be made. Several of the land use committee met on the land a couple weeks ago with our excavator and forester. We went over all the work we'd like done with dozers and front-loaders with the excavator, which include fixing our road, finishing culverts, installing the mound and septic system, trenching for water, drain, electrical and gas lines, repairing the diversion trench above the mound, and preparing the sites for the buildings. this is a big list of things and he estimated it would take about a month to complete it all. his estimate for a starting date is late july. this will give us ample time to prepare for the construction cycle, but not a lot of time before wintery weather sets in.

with the forester we walked most of the five acres we plan to develop and sized up the trees to be cut. his estimate is that the hardwoods are worth about $1500, mostly red oak and sugar maple. we have a lot of hemlock that we can use to build with.

this week, i'm going to be looking into specifics of the foundation, straw bale details, timber framing details, plumbing and electrical codes, talking with our engineer to revise drawings reflecting the new well and building locations, and investigating privy tanks (woo hoo!).

the walt whitman gathering is this coming weekend and i hope to be able to spend time with design and land folks there talking about our construction season!