Saturday, November 28, 2009

Sales = Upgrades....

This morning was the first seriously cold morning we have had here in Levy Co Florida for the season...32degrees ( that's 0 degrees for you metric folk )...A thin layer of ice covered everything...but this did not stop us from being up and on the road to Gainesville before the sun was up....

The reason, After Thanksgiving Savings. Our Builder/Contractor had let us know that the Thanksgiving sales on these type of appliances is the best savings of the year. And after some research, I discovered he was right...

By taking advantage of the sale we were able to upgrade to all Stainless Steal kitchen appliances, instead of standard white ones, while still staying within our budget...I am super thrilled to say the least....The sale prices also allowed us to afford to look for the features we really wanted in the appliances without compromising...All 3 are Energy Star and ECO friendly....See it was not just about looks...

Now we had thought we would have to store them in our garage until the new kitchen was ready for the lovelies to be installed, and we would also be loosing a couple of months off of the 12month after sale warranty....

BUT Sears totally rocks and we were able to set up to have them delivered in late February instead...meaning they will not be taking up valuable room in the garage AND more importantly, the warranty will not go into affect until we have them delivered...Now if the kitchen is not ready for them in Feb (though I really hope it is ) we can push back the delivery date to closer to the time when we are ready for them.

Another bonus of getting the Appliances taken care of now...one less big decision to be made :)

So if you ask me this was truly a sale worth getting of bed for.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Daddy Oak's final resting place...

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Four days after being pushed over, the main trunk was still in the middle of the house site, while we figured out what to do with him.

Too big to burn and even too big to cut up with any chain saw they had. So they had to bring in even more equipment to move him.


We, unfortunately, were in town shopping for Thanksgiving when they moved him...On our return the new house site was finally fully cleared.





As you can see from the photo's, we only cleared enough room for the house...We intend to hand clear the rest so to be able to preserve as many of the trees as possible.



Here is Daddy Oak in his final resting place. Come spring the wild cherry saplings will have grown up around him so he will be out of sight...I am sure the woodpeckers and other birds will continue to enjoy him.

David is pointing to some bricks and rusty old springs that are wedged in the roots.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Day two...The Water Oak has to go....

Sadly on closer inspection the majestic Water Oak is just not healthy enough to be saved...It would also create a potential risk to the house...The branches are like swiss cheese, just full of wood pecker holes...or just visually rotten...










So under the watchful eye of Foreman Sara it too was removed.








Firstly he dug around the base of the tree and broke as many of the tap roots as possible...This took awhile to get done.









Then he gently pushed the tree over..










By sacrificing this old dying tree, it allowed us to preserve both pecan tree's and a smaller live oak tree....







Here you can see just how big it really was and the hole is HUGE.....










Watch the video.....

Make way...here we come...


In 2004 we made our first journey from Charlotte NC to Levy county FL to check out a little piece of dirt for a potential new home for our family..What we ..found was a old run down single wide trailer and a very over grown property.

But this did not deter us...We fell in love and 6months later moved from NC to sunny FL.


So fast forward 5yrs or so and the old trailer is gone, the property is ours and
on Tuesday morning November 17th 2009 this is how it looked.


Photo taken from the driveway....








Taken for the North West End of the yard..













And then later that same day...Taken from behind the tree line out in the open hay field...






Just a few short hours later and it is a thing of beauty...at last we have made way for our house to be nestled under the pecan tree's....Could this possibly be were the original homestead stood those many decades ago?

Driveway











North West End







So the sun sets on day one of this exciting new adventure.....