CLEARING THE LAND

Before the clearing started

2009......Was the year for clearing the land. We started mid-summer because any earlier the bugs would have eaten us alive. Trust me, we tried a few times but with all the under brush the mosquitoes were crazy and the whining was tremendous (not from me either) .This was a big job as we had a lot of trees to cut down. Luckily I love the chain saw so it wasn't work for me. We decided on a location for the house keeping in mind the set backs (distance from property lines & river). We had a beautiful large oak tree right where the house would be. We brought in an Arborist  to look at the Oak,  along with other large trees close to the location of the house. Right away he said the Oak had to come down for a few reasons. He felt it was approximately 100-150 years old with a few areas of concern. The main issue being the tree coming down during a bad storm. He gave us a quote to clear the under brush and cut down the Oak and other trees. I had no intention of hiring someone to do that work but the boss found this Arborist at the Cottage show and had to have him. She was afraid we would cut down the wrong trees . His initial visit was cheap, only $50 and he was there for a few hours.  There is a phrase I live by and you will here me say it many times through out my blogs "HAPPY WIFE HAPPY LIFE".

Base of Oak was 4ft across

 I have cut down many trees over the years and was very comfortable working with a chainsaw but I was concerned about this one. A good friend of mine on the department said he would come and give me a hand. The day started of well, we had a plan and it seemed it was going to be quite easy. He started his way up the tree with spurs on and around 10 feet up the tree he slipped and fell to the ground. Needless to say no cutting down trees that day, we spent most of the day at the Bracebridge hospital. I now needed to make the dreaded call home to say we were at the hospital, after many warnings to be careful etc...I felt bad that he had come all this way to help me and ended up with a separated shoulder. This also resulted in time away from work!

Timber

I was still determined to cut down that Oak , so with help from another friend also a firefighter we set off to cut it down.  Changing the method of attack, there would be no climbing this time. Fortunately, the tree was  in the middle of the property with no structures to worry about when it came down.  It took some work and the better part of a day, but we got it down without much damage to other trees. I must say when a  tree of that size comes down, it hits the ground and feels like an earthquake. Once it was down I took a closer look. It had been hit by lightning and had a lot damaged branches.  This was too nice of a tree to cut up for firewood, so we decided to have it milled into planks to later use for hardwood flooring in the house.

Taken a break

Where the house is going to be

With all the trees that had been cut down, there was a mountain of branches to be dealt with.  We tried burning small piles at a time but that turned into a slow and smokey process. The decision was made to rent a wood chipper and attack the pile that way. By this time it was Thanksgiving 2009 and my family was going to be at the cottage for the holiday weekend.  Saturday was the day to rent the chipper, which meant being in town early in order to get back to the lot to meet Lisa and the kids.  I was at the lot by 8 a.m. and it was magical. The sun was coming up over the trees and a mist was coming off the water. With our kids back for the weekend from college, plenty of  sunshine and lots of laughs, chipping the wood, clearing the land, this was a day to remember. As my Mum would say it was a "Golden Day.

Early morning mist

Ready for Milling

Milling the logs

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It was now getting near the end of October and I wanted to get all the Oak milled and stacked before the snow started to fly. I found a local (Muskoka) guy with a portable mill.  He met me at the lot to see what needed to be cut. It was decided that he would come first with his tractor to put all the logs into a pile. 
Then he'd come back to cut the logs into planks. On the day we arranged to mill the logs, I arrived at the lot at 9 a.m and he was already there. The machine was set up and ready to go. We decided to go with rough cuts of 1 inch thick and 2 widths, 5 and 7 inches. I wanted some
squared beams cut to use for mantels so we cut 3 different sizes.  Man were they heavy!  We had to move them from the machine to a  location where they would sit for a few years to season. There were 3 of us, the owner of the machine 55yrs old, his helper 67 yrs old and me 46 yrs old. The first piece was 13ft long 12 in x12 in and the heaviest thing I have ever lifted. He told me that piece would be half the weight when it dried. I told him that's good because I didn't want Lisa to hurt her back when she moved it.We worked on it all day and finished the last few pieces in the dark using his truck headlights. I should have enough wood for about 1000 sq. ft.  I really enjoyed this experience and felt good that this nice old Oak was going to be part of my house to be enjoyed for many years to come.

Finished planks

 So 2009 comes to a close with big plans for 2010................

Time Line

Checking out the property

Before I get into all the hidden costs as stated at the end of my last post, I would like to give a little time line from the past to the present. My parents have owned a cottage on the Muskoka River for the past 30 years. So knowing the area very well and hoping to retire here, we were keeping an eye open for land for sale. A few came up which we checked out and by the time we seriously looked into them, they were sold. Then on the Thanksgiving weekend in 2008, we were on a long walk, which is one of our favorite pass times, we saw a piece of land for sale ( The realtor was just putting up the sign). We walked the lot a few times and fell in love with it. The lot already had a driveway down onto the property with lots of nice trees, good water frontage, and it was high and dry. We had a friend who was a Realtor so we asked him if was interested in working for us, which he did. We made our offer and with a few counter offers and conditions the offer was accepted with a closing date of December 19th, 2008. Finally on November 6, 2008 we signed off on the condition of the offer and now all we had to do was wait for the closing day (Dec. 19th).

I'm standing in front of our lot and
 No, that's not Santa Clause. 

On the day of closing we decided to go to the lot so we asked a good friend  to join us for this special day.(this is the same friend who came up with the name "River Retreat") We headed up in the morning and we drove into a bad winter storm. Our lot is not located on a year round road, and the driveway is 200 metres from it. We started out  walking  to the lot while our friend stayed in the vehicle to attend to her new born baby. As we trudged through the deep snow, the cell phone rang and it was our lawyer calling to inform us that the deal just closed and the property was ours.

Winter Wonderland

My wife and I have gone to my parents cottage for New Years for as long as I can remember so while we were up, we walked up to the lot to see how it looked in the winter. It was magical, I can still remember walking (snowshoeing) around the lot and standing by the river and saying to my wife " I can't believe this is ours"

The year of 2009........