Friday, May 25, 2007

Tractor Time


We decided we needed a tractor to build the house and later on for the ranch. The tractor we bought was a Montana with a backhoe and some other attachments; It has a 70 horse power 3 stroke 4 cycle John Deere engine.

It's not a big tractor but it does what it is suppose to. It digs like a champ it runs great and has more torque then i know what to do with.

Pretty soon we will start to dig for electrical lines ( hopefully before snow falls) and ofcourse the tractor is used to get the trees out the woods and on the saw mill

Thursday, May 24, 2007

first post

Spring of 2005, Graduation arrived and a new chapter in my life has started. Graduated with a Civil Engineering Degree out of Colorado State University. Job lined up with The Weitz Company. The first assignment was unclear when I started; was supposed to go through 4 weeks of orientation and that assigned to an ongoing construction job in the Denver area. 2 days before I started work they told me I have to be in Telluride, CO; definitely not the Denver area (For those of you not familiar with the area it is about a 2 hours flying or 6 to 7 hours driving).

The plan was to eventually save up enough money to buy a house within 10 years. My plan got accelerated and changed to say the least.

To keep the story short, I quit Weitz because the company's way of doing business is not very good and the job was just not for me. I took a job with the building department in Mountain Village, CO and found myself my other half (her name is Marcy Pickering).

Well bringing you up to date we are building a house, starting by cutting the trees (Ponderosa pine) sending it through our portable sawmill (woodmizer) and producing all engineering and architectural drawings ourself. The Frame of the house will be a hybrid frame of Heavy timber construction and convensional stick frame construction.
Some thing we are not able to do by ourselfs cause the county will not allow it. For instance i don't have my PE and stamp yet so i can't stamp my own plan.