The Grovestead

It has been an exciting few weeks here at the Grovestead. We broke ground on our new barn project in mid-May and, weather-permitting, the activity hasn’t stopped since. In a swift two days the ground was leveled and made ready for construction using 80 cubic yards of clay from our own hillside.

The site was built up as much as 5 feet in some places. But the excavators did such a fine job of smoothing out the hillside where they scooped up the dirt, you’d never know they were here.

Atop the clay pad was dumped 5 truckloads of fill sand.

One boy in particular was happy watching all the real-life “toys” moving about the property.

After hours Ivar and Elsie played in the dirt berms and clay pits. This became a smooth hillside 12 hours later.

The workers arrived a few days later and began squaring the site for construction.

Most of the materials arrived the same day on two flatbed trucks. The posts were so long the forklift driver had to raise the skids 7 feet off the ground to avoid hitting the apple trees 30′ apart.

Holes were dug and posts dropped into place at breakneck speed, considering there were only two workers and 40 posts.

Overall the construction has been going very smoothly. Only a few minor delays, mostly weather-related. We’ve been holding our breath a lot around here, watching to see how our simple plans-on-paper take shape in real life (“…those are really tall poles!”). But mostly we have been thrilled with the progress.