June 28 - Steps to the dock. Tomorrow they start on the fire pit!

Gorgeous day. The skid loader is out of the shop and here's what they accomplished today.

Eight steps down to the dock.....

Getting ready to set the fire pit and patio. The fire pit is made out of Iowa Limestone from the Anamosa area. We're hoping that we will be able to have a fire by the lake early next week!!

They had to trench in a 2nd tile after they found water seeping through the wall. That's the reason for gravel extending towards the lake.

So much work yet to do.

June 27 - Skid loader is still in the shop

Today was a great day with cloud cover and lower temps in the morning. Good day to get some work done yet the contractor's primary tool.....his skid loader.....is not fixed yet. Not much got done with that machine. His 3720 tractor and loader just can't handle the grunt work like the skid loader. The guys left before 2 pm.

Here's three pics I took last evening before sunset starting in the northeast and proceeding south off our deck. Our view looks east-southeast. The lake is murky right now after all the rain since mid-April. But in the hours before sunset the lake captures the color of the sky and the reflections can be amazing on the calm water.

June 26 - Top step is in and then it rained

They got the last few steps installed by noon today. Then, a hydraulic leak from under their skid loader caused enough concern that they took it to the repair shop this afternoon. They loaded it up during another rainstorm and that pretty much ended their work day. Here are the pics....

June 25 - Deer in the headlights!!!

It has been too wet lately for the landscaper to continue on the steps. On Monday, he took advantage of the rainy day to pick up more materials for us in Des Moines.

And, this past Saturday we loaded up some Old Black Water rocks at Quint City Stone in Davenport and hauled them back to Sundown. The largest of these 5 rocks was core drilled to make a fountain.....much like we had in our yard in Long Grove. We also picked up the block and fire ring to make our fire pit. The forecast is 89 degrees and humid with a slight chance for a shower tomorrow. Hopefully they can get the steps done soon and start on the patio and our fire pit. It would be nice to have this area ready for our 4th of July week with the family.

Our trip back from Davenport on Saturday evening was a challenge. It's normally a 3-hour drive with no stops. But this drive was bound to take a little longer with our load of rock. I had borrowed a tandem trailer from a good neighbor. We had strapped down our load and left Davenport about 6:45. We stopped for a bite to eat in Muscatine about 7:30 and checked the load. All was in good shape.

A few miles later south of Muscatine, Brenda alerted me to something flapping on the passenger's side of the trailer so we stopped. One of the straps had been severed but the load was staill in tact. I tied a good, solid square knot and tightened the strap once again. We stopped again and checked the load again at the Mount Pleasant exit....tightened down the straps just a bit and proceeded westbound on Hwy 34.

Just a few miles east of Fairfield at about 9:45 pm I noticed the bright lights of an eastbound train on the tracks. These heavily traveled tracks run parallel to Highway 34 for several miles near mile marker 217 - 219. Suddenly between the train and the highway a deer bounded out of the ditch directly ahead of us. I had little time to choose a course of action. There was too much weight on the trailer behind me to slam on the brakes and avoid her. I chose to slowly angle/drift our rig into the lefthand lane in hopes of avoiding a collision with this large doe. But, I was apparent that we were going to hit her. She barely missed the right front fender of the truck with my move into the left lane but she rammed into the trailer with a loud thump. I was able to maintain control of my F150 and the loaded trailer, thank God, and we slowed to a stop at the next gravel intersection. Upon inspection, there was no apparent damage and no blood anywhere on the side of the trailer. But we were sure that she hadn't fared well and was probably in very bad shape somewhere in the darkness behind us.

We proceeded on and once again checked our load at Ottumwa exit. It was there that I noticed that the tie down strap that had broken earlier was cut once again in a different spot a few inches past my knot. We lost the end of the strap this time.

When we got to Sundown and dropped the trailer at our neighbor's place about 11:15, Brenda noticed that the right front tire on the trailer's tandem axles was bent at an angle apparently from the impact with the deer. We're guessing that the axle is bent.....unfortunately for my friend and neighbor. Insurance will take care of the repair but not the inconvenience.

I feel lucky that we didn't have a bad collision with this deer. We could have easily taken a hard blow to the front end of the pickup and, even worse, been injured. I have never seen so many deer along the roads as I have in the past year of living in southern Iowa. I had another close encounter last year with the truck and a doe. If and when you come to visit us please be extra cautious and watch for these animals. Before and after dusk is the worst time. After hitting the deer Saturday evening, I'm sure we saw at least another 8-10 deer in our headlights before arriving home.

Although we are seeing quite a few fawns in the area around the lake, I'm hoping to not have to report any more deer stories anytime soon. The first week of December would be a good time to have another good deer story to tell. Tomorrow, I should have a report on landscaping once again!

June 21 - Need more steps it appears

Eighteen steps and we probably need 4-5 more to get up to the lower level.

June 20 - More Steps

Just got back from a trip to the shooting range in Ottumwa. Brenda and I completed a Handgun Skills class through Indian Hills Community College this afternoon. This gave us both a chance to do a little shooting under the supervision of a veteran Ottumwa policeman. The same man also taught the safety class that we completed back in March in order to test for our Iowa conceal & carry permit.

Watch out! Brenda is armed and dangerous!

Here's the progress on the steps today.....

June 19 - Steppin' Up!

Today has been beautiful and the start of placing steps up from the fire pit. 4 steps so far.

June 18 - Time to get you caught up.

My apologies. But I have not been doing blog updates as promised simply because we are at the end of our billing month for satellite internet service and have been very near our 10 Gb limit for the past week. Brenda and I have been purposely trying to avoid exceeding our download/upload allowance. I'm cheap that way. I hate paying more than I already do each month and tomorrow we start a new month.

Progress has been slower than I expected with the landscaping but it takes a lot of time to pick the right rocks and stack them tightly. Drier weather this week should help. This past week the crew got my front yard and driveway in good shape to handle any more rain and runoff.

Here's what the driveway and hillside looked like before.

Here's what it looks like now.

Had a load of gravel for the driveway delivered this morning. They'll use this gravel for backfill on some of the rock walls also. But most of this load of washed 3/4" rock is to top off the driveway area that was covered with 6" of silt after our 20+ inches of rain since mid-April.

We still need to add rock or mulch on the black ground cover and there will be grasses and shrubs planted above and below the rock wall in the coming days. Rye grass was seeded above the rock wall and covered with straw just in time to take advantage of 0.6" of rain on Friday. The grass should germinate quickly over the next 2 weeks. Runoff from the hillside should be relatively free of this "@$*&')##" clay soil and be channeled towards the ravine.

This week, they started building the wall for the fire pit and steps from the back of house down towards the lake. Here's what it looked like before they started.

They removed more material from the side hill and have placed some big stones.

A perforated drain tile was placed behind the base layer of rocks and backfilled with gravel.

Here's the fire pit wall at the end of the day today....

And, here's a preview of the stone steps.

Coming up with a fire ring design and purchasing the materials is next on the agenda. Any suggestions? 

June 7, 2013 - Let the Landscaping Begin!!!

After a 5 month hiatus, I'm back to report on the landscaping work that begins today.  I have taken all my "before" pictures and will post them as needed to document the progress around the house. The crew is starting with the driveway and the area above the cement. So much dirt has washed down the embankment onto the concrete that we've had a muddy mess for weeks now. We've had over 20 inches of rain in the past 7 weeks.

With nearly 90 tons of rock from Winnebago County piled up at the top of the hill, let's get this property in shape!!

I'm glad to report that the contractor uses John Deere equipment!

And, just to get us started on the right foot, we had 0.10" of rain this morning! Check back often for daily updates over the coming weeks. We are hoping for good results before the July 4th holiday.