Underground Power

The trench for the underground power was backfilled tonight.  We plan to build a bunk house half way up the driveway, so while we had the trench open, I put a power cable in for that as well.  Next up, Kootenai Electric needs to take down the overhead lines and pull the new wire.  With any luck, that will be done in the next few days.  Rebuilding the retaining wall may have to wait till spring though.
 

Underground Power

While I was up at the lake yesterday, I cut the trim behind the meter box and installed the 2" conduit for the underground power.  The power company does not like the way I tied it into the conduit they laid in the trench.  I didn't glue anything, so it should be an easy fix.  We have a bit of a wind storm coming on Wednesday, so I don't know how busy they will be.
 

Tool Shed

The roof on the shed is done and just in time.  It rained hard at the lake last night.  I also got all the hand tools and ladders piled inside the shed for the winter.  It's really nice to have a dry place to put everything that is not just sitting under the house.
 

Tool Shed

Since we had a nice day yesterday, I decided to get the roof done on the tool shed before the rain starts.  Unfortunately my saw blade ran out before I got everything cut.  I plan to get a new blade and finish this week sometime.  

Since we have not decided what we are going to do for a roof on the cabin, this one is just temporary, but it does look nice.

 

Underground Power

If you've watched the blog at all, you may have noticed that we do not like to finish one project before moving on to the next.  Since we have the sprinklers  1/2 done, we figured this would be a good time to rip up the driveway and put the power underground from the pole to the house.  The power company will donate the copper and conduit, so we just had to pay for the trench.
 

Retaining Wall

After sitting in the chairs for the afternoon, we realized we should have let the end of the retaining wall dead-end into the fence rather than curve back toward the lake.  This will give us much more room to sit around the fire pit.  And you thought the retaining wall was done...  Oh, the fire pit is now mortared as well.  This little area is so much more usable now.
 

Fire Pit

The retaining wall is done and the first ring is set in place.  We will mortar it in the morning and then we can fill the inside part way up with gravel to raise the fire up.  Next up is to get the sprinkler lines run through where the stairs go so we can get them done.  This has been a ton of work for such a small wall.  But now we can sit back and enjoy the fire and the view at the same time.
 

Retaining Wall

The first 2 courses of the new retaining wall are done and it is turning out very well.  I used 3" of dry concrete mix as my base and that makes things so much easier to work with.  The mix packs really well and firms up nicely when the ground gets wet.  We have 2 more courses to stack and then we can build the fire pit.  We'll get that done after lunch.
 

Retaining Wall

It took forever, but we finally got all the dirt moved so the retaining wall can be rebuilt farther back from the lake.  This will allow us to sit all the way around the firepit and give us a great spot to sit in the shade in the early afternoon.  We used 5 gallon buckets and it took over 130 of them to get all the dirt out of here and up the stairs to back fill the upper retaining wall.  Yes, we counted them, no it's not strange.
 

Retaining Wall

The stairs and retaining wall that were near the fire pit were not really in the best spot.  So we have taken them down in order to move them back toward the tree by about 3 feet.  We realized we better do this before we get too far on the sprinkler system.  So it's time to take a break on that and do some hard manual labor for a few days.