1973 Blue Bird

[Rudy]

Zac already had a stack of cedar trees that will be used for the posts of the house.

[Rudy]

The Amish crew arrives. Their main job, presently, is to cut down oak trees on the property and de-bark them. They will be used for the beams that sit atop the cedar posts.

You will only see these two photos of them as it is against their religion to "pose".

I told the leader of the crew that I would be chronicling the building of the underground house with photographs of the progress.

I also told him that I would respect his wishes to not photograph them.

I asked him where he got those hats. There is a store that sells Amish clothing. I am going to get one of those hats. I hope they will sell one to a non-Amish guy. Perhaps I will just give the guy some money and let him get one for me.

[Rudy]

The beginning of the stack of oak logs that have been cut and stripped.

[Rudy]

Here you see where trees have been felled, de-limbed, and de-barked.

[Rudy]

Here are pictures of Zac hauling trees out of the woods and bringing them to the pile.

[Rudy]

Oh look, two at once.





And the pile gets bigger.





And bigger and bigger.

[Rudy]

That's it for now.

Tomorrow, Zac and I have to return the box truck.

I will take a few more pics of the logging process.

Soon we'll have some pics of the big machine hoisting up timbers. That will be fun.

[stuartcnz]

Zac's little tractor looks awesome.

[Stealth Camper]

Looks like good progress and a good time being had by all.


Rudy, I have been using Photobucket for everything I put up here, since I couldn't get TinyPic to work for me. When I want to resize, I click on the picture to put it in edit mode, then choices appear along the top of the picture. One is to resize. I can then select the 640 x 480 and it will ask if I want to change the original or save it as a different picture. I usually just resize, 'cause I have the originals elsewhere. Hope this helps a little.

Gotta get me a sawmill!! Seeing those logs makes me crave lumber!!

Dan

[Rudy]

Welcome back to the Underground House project.

Yesterday, Zac and his trusty companion, The Blue Bird Guy, went to town in his beautiful flatbed hauler that we built.

We had to get a replacement hydraulic hose for the one that broke on Gary's tractor, 15 gallons of diesel fuel, eight 20 foot lengths of 1/2 inch rebar, three 20 foot lengths of 1 inch rebar, and procurement of the large telescoping fork lift machine.

[Rudy]

We got the rebar at a place that just deals in rebar.

Then we went to a HUGE farm supply store where we got the hydraulic hose for Gary's tractor.

[Rudy]

I noticed that there were a few old Ford tractors for sale. I had to get a closer look.

[Rudy]

Now on to the rental place. As with the farm supply store, Zac went in to do the transactions.

The item that stood out noticeably is the wind powered electric tower.
It is called Skystream. It's rated capacity is 2400 watts. I don't know how much it costs. I am sure you can find info on it through Google.

[Rudy]

Today was a big day. Eight posts were set. At first, it was trial and error, but once a method was established, the setting of the poles went quicker.

The "sky boom" machine arrived this morning at Gary's house, up the road. There was room for the big truck and trailer to turn around there and to unload the "long arm of the forks" machine.

Here are some pics.

Zac and I arrived on the golf cart after the machine had already been unloaded from the trailer.





Here is a pic of the trailer automatically folding it's ramp underneath itself.





Here is the truck that hauled the trailer.

[Rudy]

The machine is ready to be started.





Here, Gary and Zac discuss the controls.






Zac takes off down the road.






Gary follows Zac with his four wheeler, and I follow them both in Zac's golf cart.