Cabin in progress

Good stuff JMax!! Will be cool to follow your cabin story this summer!

Jim looks great. Sounds like you will be plenty busy this spring and summer putting the cabin up. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Part 3

This week I planned to dig the basement for the cabin. I enlisted the help of my buddy Rich who is a professional dirt digger. All week long I prepared my gear and watched the weather. Rich and I both used a vacation day Friday so we could do the majority of the work on a weekday and Saturday in case of a breakdown and needing supplies. Rich Didn't get home from work until 6 and till he got showered and to my house it was 7 pm Thursday till we left for Ohio.

I hauled my Kubota with the backhoe attachment on this trip. The drive out went without any problems and we arrived in Ohio at the property at 1:30 am. My brother Kurt drove out in his car ahead of us and had the gate unlocked and a campfire going and his tent all set up when we arrived. I set my tent up and we got to bed around 2 am. Rich came completely unprepared so I let him sleep on my cot in my 2 person tent (which really should be called a 1.5 person tent) and I slept on ground beside cot. Between his snoring and lumpy ground I got about 3 hours of sleep.

I crawled out of bed around 6:45 and started making coffee on my cook stove. Next unloaded tractor and all the tools. Rich jumped on the skid loader and started dressing up the driveway and my brother Kurt and I ran to a nearby ag store to rent a lime spreader to put some lime on my food plots. I put 4 tons down on my original acre plot and another 4 ton down on a 1 acre grass field that I plan to make into a plot this year.

Rich started working on the basement dig around noon on Friday and I wrapped up liming about that same time. The guy doing the poured walls stopped by to get an idea of what he will be encountering on the job. His helper lives right down the street and he told me it is an excellent area for big buck so that was encouraging. Rich ran a whole tank of fuel out of the skid steer around 6 pm so we had to load it on trailer and run to town to fill it up. While we were loading up the rain started coming down. It rained off and on all night and by morning it was a steady drizzle. Rich said he had about 4 hours of digging left to complete basement so he got started around 7 am Saturday. He finished up around 11 am and the only thing left to do was dig a frost footer 3' deep along daylight end of basement. Right at finish grade on basement Rich started hitting rock so we were a little worried about digging trench. I jumped on my Kubota and started trying to dig the footer. I was getting nowhere fast. After scratching around for 15 min I had a trench 2" deep 4' long. Rich told me I needed to give up and rent a mini excavator to do it. I told him it would cost me $300 to rent a machine plus go pick it just to dig a 20' trench 3 foot deep. Rich is used to running brand new serious equipment but I like making do with what I got so I kept at it and finally I was started to make a little progress. Six hours later I had my trench dug and we were done. Just as we started loaded up to come home it started thunder storming and pouring cats and dogs.

We got home about 11:30 last night and I was real happy with what we accomplished. Not sure if I'll make it out next weekend because it's the wife and my 1 year anniversary. If it dries out and the poured wall guy can get to it this week I'll have to drive out for that day.

Another cool thing this past trip was I got a trail cam picture of a deer with a collar on.

Good progress not sure why a deer would be wearing a collar though are you around any deer farms

sounds like you got a lot done
I would even check with local game warden and ask if the state is doing any studies on deer, thus the collar on that one
might be cool if they would share the info with you
here in PA< they have been doing studies for a many yrs now, and even offer rewards if you manage to kill one and trun the collar in
they will give you history on the deer, , like how heavey it was,age and so on, at time they collared it

Looks good Jim you really are getting a lot done out there. May want to take the wife out for a really nice dinner if you are going to be working on the cabin next weekend.

Some great progress for you there JMax!!

I can't wait to see the end result. You are going to love having that place.

Attachment 10582It's been awhile since I was able to report anything on cabin build. Finally I am able to get this project really rolling. I have my truck loaded up and I'm rolling out at 3 am tomorrow morning. I don't have out of state tags so hopefully I don't get hassled by DOT when I'm out of PA even though its legal to drive my rig for personal use out of state.

The poured wall company finally got good enough weather to form and pour the walls. I have a crew of 4 buddies and myself ready to rip and tear till the cabin is up. As long as I'm home by Sunday the wife will be happy. I'll give plenty more updates and pics when I get back.

Looks like you will be busy. Can't wait to see it standing