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6 Feb ’14
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After a month of delays, construction on my property has finally begun! This past Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014, at 9:17 am Central time, my wait was over!
DAY 1
My contractor had estimated 30 hours to clear the driveway and the main clearing. His operator did it in 4 hours!
After all my careful planning and marking the route of the driveway, the operator from his vantage point high up in the excavator suggested a change in the route that would eliminate the zig-zag switchbacks and take a much more direct course that would be shorter and more gradual than what I had laid out!
Standing on top of the track of his machine, I could see what he meant. I was all for the change. I took him less time to do, and would cost me less money in gravel since it shortened the driveway.
I spent most of that first day supervising and directing him as I interpreted the route from the markings I had made. That meant not much time to take photos or video. It was a concession I could live with. While I want to document things as I go, getting it done comes first.
Eight hours later my property looked quite different, I was covered in bug bites, sunburn, and sweat, and despite heat exhaustion bordering on heat stroke, I was happy and feeling very accomplished. I went home, tried cooling off while I ate, and collapsed early into bed and slept through the night.
It was a good day.
15 Feb ’12
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awesome, congrats! the journey begins
6 Feb ’14
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Day 2
I arrived in the morning to find the excavator already at work. The operator had picked up where he had left off the prior day. An hour later, the porta-potty arrived and I directed him where to put it.
Now that the driveway took a more direct path to the building site, I wondered if running the electric line overhead was an option again rather than burying the line. I contacted the engineer and scheduled an appointment for him to revisit my property the following morning.
By the end of the day, the area for the pond was mostly defined, the right-of-way was widened, the building site was scraped, and grading had begun.
Once again I was on the verge of heat stroke. The operator was kind enough to offer me a ride back to the road. I sat on top the maintenance stairs leading up to the engine and clutched tightly to the handrail. Riding down the hill, I was braced even tighter as we rocked and swayed, bumped and bounced our way down. I was enjoying it all until heading up the hill at the halfway point I spotted a spider on my arm. I dared not let go to swat it away. "Please don't bite me. Please don't bite me!" ran through my head as I reminded myself to remain calm and focused on holding tight to the handrail. We reached the clearing by the road and the operator shut the engine down just as the spider crawled off my arm and onto the handrail. Whew!
After talking with my contractor, and then with the culvert company, I decided to order the pipes. The sales woman had initially told me next day delivery, but had changed her tune to it taking "up to" a week. GRRRRR
15 Feb ’12
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I always love watching a good operator, amazing what they can do
27 Aug ’14
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This is good stuff. Did you start with a land survey and draw it out on paper or did you just walk the property and build something in your mind? I'd love to see the master plan. Also, how much acreage did you settle on?
6 Feb ’14
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icanreachit said
This is good stuff. Did you start with a land survey and draw it out on paper or did you just walk the property and build something in your mind? I'd love to see the master plan. Also, how much acreage did you settle on?
Thank you. 
I had a survey done prior to completing the purchase to be certain it was "as advertised". I paid extra to have the surveyor mark the "lines of sight" in addition to the corners. Once the sale went through, the first thing I did (after pulling out the Realtor's "for sale" sign) was to carefully mark my property lines in between the line of sight marks to make my boundaries as clear as possible and easier to find.
The "master plan" came together as a combination of many things including walking the property, sketching out my boundaries in Google Earth (GE) and saving it as a .kml file, using GE along with downloadable topography overlays to map elevations and help figure out the best route for the driveway following the natural contours of the land as much as possible, and yes, building it in my mind. I'm part Jedi. 
My property is about 7.5 acres. I'm hoping that I will be able to increase that in the future by buying various adjoining property in whole or in part. For now that's just a dream because I simply cannot afford to. Maybe I can afford to at some point in the future.
I have a decent number of threads on this forum in the 6 months or so that I have been a member. I've used this forum in particular to plan, discuss, and document things, and I plan to continue doing so. Here are some relevant links within the forum you may find useful or interesting:
All threads started by Earthenstead
http://thehomesteadi.....038;type=5
Earthenstead's "Outline and discussion on developing my property to be move in ready." thread
http://thehomesteadi.....-in-ready/
Permalink to a post in the above thread with a visual overhead layout of my original "master plan"
http://thehomesteadi.....dy/#p29897
I have more updates coming. I'm posting as I have time which is very limited right now as I am in the middle of acting as my own onsite project manager. Also, these updates are media intensive (video and/or photos) which takes a great deal more time to organize, upload, and describe.
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