Land Preparation

After a busy summer full of both planned and un-planned deployments with Mercy Chefs, a high school graduation, family vacation, a new job, and school we got a bit sidetracked on prepping the land.  But with our youngest son moving off to college at the end of August, we knew we needed to push forward to get the land move-in ready for our RV.  The land was very overgrown by mid-July; so much so that we had to have it bush hogged.  Once that was complete, we called out all the utility companies to mark their lines so that we could have some power pole removed. 

We had a burn pile that needed to be burned desperately and by the end of July had growth coming out of it. We finally had time to burn, and then-BOOM!  Burn ban!  We'd have to wait even longer.

 Water utility markings..

 Two of the poles that were removed.  These were placed really awkwardly right by the driveway, and they dead-ended on our property.  We had the electric company pull them out and dead-end on the very edge of our property instead.

 More utility markings by the road.  Our future fence will be just to the left of these flags.

 Here my hubby is showing a friend where he plans to dig the hole for our electricity to be directed to.

 Almost every time we work on the land our "neighbors" come over to be nosy.

 Two days after my hubby made plans to move forward on the electrical he got called away to the flooding in Baton Rouge.  Some friends who knew we were planning to do the work graciously came and did a ton of work while he was away. I am still amazed by their generosity!  They ran the water line from meter to the back of the property where we plan to park the RV.

 The burn band was lifted that very day, and they even burned the burn pile for us.

 He brought out his equipment which made quick work of the piles of brush.

 My youngest son helped them finish up the weed eating.

 Covering the water line back up.

 What a beautiful sight to see this catching and finally burning!

 Running water!  Another beautiful sight!

 I actually have no idea how many hours they tended the fire-there was just a huge amount of brush that needed to be burned.

 No idea what's going on here, but I think he was getting a line dug.

 We had many questions about the septic system that had been on the site, and when our friend dug the line for the water, he came across some of the septic lines and was able to answer our questions about where the line had been run, which was great to be able to move forward.

 At the final location for the water spigot.  (I think some of these pictures must be a bit out of order.)

 The next day he came out and spread out a pile of rock and dirt near the burn pile.  We are going to have to raise the level of the house site before building because it is in a flood plain, so it made sense to move that pile to the area that will have to be raised.

 When my husband got home from Baton Rouge, he started prepping the land for the new electric pole that is going in.  This one is 4 feet deep.

 Here he is cutting the pole for that hole.

 And here it is laid out and ready for the electrician.

 Today is Labor Day so I got to go out with his to the land while he dug more holes to finish out the fence.

 This hole had an old tree root that gave him a bit of trouble.

 And then...our connex was delivered!

 Pretty nifty trailer that rolled sideways to get it into place.  We will start moving some of our stuff into storage in here.

Next the electrician got started on his part of the pole.  I didn't get any pictures of that because I had to go home to study right after he began.  So much has happened on the land this month-it is so exciting, and I am ready (mentally) for the move!  Physically, not so much-lots of packing to do!