Slab poured, the weather has cleared - 08 Apr 2009

Finally the weather has cleared and the slab base was able to be poured. next will come the pole/piers. Additional gravel has helped stabilize the driveway.

Ready for the slab after a ton of rain - 26 Mar 2009

Plumber began his underground plumbing and the carpenter lays out his slab forms. A very wet couple of days. drainage canals had to be dug alongside the driveway. Next door neighbor worried about the culvert and drainage from out lot.

Dirt, Dirt, and More Dirt! 12 Mar 2009

Our consulting architect, J Vaughan Sollenberger, and our general contractor, Joe D Hodge, meet togther with Ellen and I on Thursday afternoons at the lot. Finally all the muck dirt has been removed and used to fill the mistaken cut from the parish right-of-way. All the fill dirt has been brought in and compacted. We can discuss other items going forward.

Oops -can't use Parish Right-of-Way! 09 Mar 2009

We didn't what the dozer guys did was correct.  Our next door neighbors contacted the Parish Council about us not not being allowed to use the parish right-of-way. St tammany Parish wrote us a letter saying we needed to cut the driveway the way it was diagramed in our USACE Wetlands permit. We would need to replace all the red fill dirt and fill it back with original "muck" dirt. This has caused us a lot of wasted time and money. notice how deep the muck dirt goes where the crane is.

Bringing in the fill dirt, 21 Feb 2009

The dozer guys got to work bringing in the fill dirt. The interior portion of the lot is still a pile of debris and mud.

After the initial clearing of the lot, 14 Feb 2009

After getting the building permit from St Tammany Parish on 23 Jan 2009, our builder had his lot clearing guys go with a dozer and crane to begin lot clearing. As you can see the ground is awfully wet! We showed our friends Sue and Sergio Derada who live in the nearby Magnolia Forest Subdivision what the property looks like.

Planting our Free Trees, 15 Jan 2009

Ellen and I picked up some cypress trees and river birches at Heritage Park in Slidell during one the city's free tree giveaways.  We planted the two cypress trees in the wettest part of the designated wetlands on the property.  We then planted the two river birch trees further away - west of where the planned driveway will go.

John