It has finally started!

But before I get to that,

here's a little look-see 

at what's gone down since I last posted.

I really am gonna try to post more

as the actual structural process goes along.

We'll just see how that goes.

I mentioned all the clearing we'd started a few posts back .
Here's an update.
And I really hope I don't repeat myself.
My apologies, if so.

We had pfitzers galore here!
This little house was surrounded by the beasts and we're certain
that they were very close to being here just as long.
The first photo doesn't do justice to the actual enormity of this stump
and its dense, gangling branches.
I am just under 5 feet 6 inches tall and I wish I could
show you that I could easily stand underneath this snarly mass.
But, alas, I am the only shutterbug around here.
Dean cut while I dragged and stacked.
The piles were gigantical!
In fact,
we figured we could have easily filled the Bungalow from top to bottom,
side to side and end to end with all the debris...
several times!
Yeah.
That's a heckuva lotta pfitzers.
So, we rented ourselves a chipper.

Dean began chipping on Friday evening.
He got a couple of hours worth done before he ran out of daylight.
Early the next morning, we hit it together.
We drug, loaded and chipped for TWELVE hours,
taking only one break to go buy more gasoline and grab some drive-thru burgers.

And there was the unloading of load after load after load of chips.
That was hard work!
With both of us working,
it took at least ten minutes per load to unload.
I gotta say though...
it sure smelled nice.
When the sunlight finally gave out and it just wasn't safe to keep going,
we could see that there was easily another half days worth of chipping left.
UGH.
The chipper wasn't due back til Monday morning.
As tempting as it was to fire up the mechanical muncher the next day,
we couldn't bring ourselves to do that on the Sabbath.
There was talk of Dean taking half a day off on Monday, but it would cost us
another full day's rental.
Besides, his allotted days off are precious and already figured into
accommodating other major tasks in getting this project complete on time.
So...
The next Saturday, we printed off our burn permit and

burned the rest.
It took us the better part of the day.
We'd spent a few evenings earlier in the week just loading it
 all into the truck,  hauling  it up to the burn pit and then unloading and stacking it.
Whew!
We are SO GLAD that's done.
And I'm amazed at what we can accomplish together.

We took a few breaks at the burn pit.
You have to.
The heat from the fire (it was huge) will wear you out fast as you try to keep it fed.
We didn't have any arm hairs left when we were finally done.

We've actually done more clearing at the very back as well,
but I won't bore you with those details.
Besides, I don't think I took any photos.

Oh, and let me tell you a funny before I end this post...

If you know this film
(and we do cuz it's a favorite of ours)
then you know this scene.
Classic.
Well,
as we finally got toward the end of clearing all those pfitzers on the North side,
we found...

this hole.
We don't know what it is, but it was full of debris.
Dean, acting as if it needed to be cleared of the debris, reached his arm down into it
and did his best impression of Gregory Peck in the scene pictured above.
And, oh my, the scream that came outta me!
And he laughed and laughed.
And then I laughed too.
And then I thanked the Lord that I am still continent.
Just sayin.
He came home from work a few days later telling me how he'd told the story of this prank to the guys and how they had laughed and laughed over lunch about it.
He was pretty proud of himself, I'd say.

And I can't forget to show you the "after" photo.

The bank of pfiters on this North side of the house was densely packed
into 150 feet in length and 30 feet in width.
We KILLED IT, man!
We've found ourselves, on a couple of occasions, just standing there
staring at the awesomeness of what we did.
We still have some big stumps to pull with the backhoe, but that's gonna have to wait a bit.
That's all for now.