Phase one

[jetstream]

Years ago a huge wind caused a bunch of blowdown on this property. While dealing with the blown over and uprooted white pine and balsams it took down with it I discovered a nice spot for an observatory. There is much frost cracked granite on this this ridge which we have to remove to get to the stable bedrock (Canadian Shield) underneath. This is phase 1 of my obsy (cabin) build. We use all of the branches, rotten wood etc for the road base and also this top layer of cracked granite. A buddy has a whole pile of Red and White pine young trees on his property (farm land) and has volunteered them to me for use to re plant this one. We plan to plant a couple of hundred trees, while respecting the forest balance ie poplar, pine, spruce and balsam.

Its going to take me a while but here is phase 1.

 

[John]

Sounds and looks an exciting project Gerry - please keep us posted on progress

I'll pop over for the opening ceremony !

 

[Galen Gilmore]

With death and destruction, comes something new and more awesome! 

Keep us informed.

[jetstream]

18 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Keep us informed.

Yes, I will by choice, thank you.

I see you live in St Louis, the site of my '71 Vette's build. Has urban development affected the area you live in or observe?  How dark are your skies? We keep our local, rural skies at 21.6 mag + and offer superb, zero light dome skies. Even our home lighting is muted by the tall pines...

[jetstream]

2 hours ago, John said:

I'll pop over for the opening ceremony !

John, you are more than welcome here, to observe and enjoy.

[Galen Gilmore]

11 hours ago, jetstream said:

Yes, I will by choice, thank you.

I see you live in St Louis, the site of my '71 Vette's build. Has urban development affected the area you live in or observe?  How dark are your skies? We keep our local, rural skies at 21.6 mag + and offer superb, zero light dome skies. Even our home lighting is muted by the tall pines...

I live in this area here.

obviously it's not "dark" but relative to most of the city it is. Milky Way can be just barely visible at the zenit. My limiting mag is +5. Luckily in our neighborhood we still have orange low pressure sodium. Out in the county, brommelsiek park is fairly dark, the STL astronomical society goes there Friday's.

[jetstream]

A bit of a delay because of the snow storm, but here is the view that the obsy will give. Like I said its going to take a while... this storm might set me back weeks.

 

[Dave In Vermont]

Beautiful land there, Gerry! I can quite see the appeal - from several directions at once.

After some cutting & stacking and aging, me thinks you'll have a bit of wood to sell! Hope the Gremlin's and Leprchuan don't mind too much!

Have fun -

Dave - around the corner.

[jetstream]

2 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

Beautiful land there, Gerry! I can quite see the appeal - from several directions at once.

After some cutting & stacking and aging, me thinks you'll have a bit of wood to sell! Hope the Gremlin's and Leprchuan don't mind too much!

Have fun -

Dave - around the corner.

Thanks Dave!

We use all the wood here for firewood ourselves, nothing wasted much. We'll have a nice bonfire for the brush and branches- this is much fun in itself. Last year I put R50 in the attic and cut our wood consumption down to very little and tonight I just installed all new 8.5 watt LED light bulbs that the CDN Gov't rebated heavily, we paid 99 cents each This will cut our light power consumption by over half again. I'm down to about 150 kwh/month now.

I corduroyed the road (rotten poplar) so less gravel is needed- and less carbon footprint bringing it in. Once done I'm going to line the road sides with CDN Red Maple (kind of a bush) and get a canopy of Birch or poplar over that. After this out comes the pine tree planting.

I'm kind of excited about it all!

[Paul73]

Sounds like a full time job! 

I'd be excited by that too (and i'm a really lazy guy)?. 

Good luck

Paul

[Dave In Vermont]

Once you start looking for effective ways to cut back consumption of energy, they practically stand-up a bark to be noticed. True here in Vermont (or 'Varmint' as some think of us as), too. My favorite is when you go past the 'good tipping-point' and start selling off your own generated back to the power-companies. They have to buy it in many places. At going market-price at that.

Isn't the AlCan (Alaskan) Highway 'corduroyed' as well?

Dave

[jetstream]

I would imagine that the old AlCan HWY would have sections corduroyed but I'm not sure.  Up here we have a power "glut" with no way to get it all "out" and a solar farm has been built in the west end of the district. If the power system here can't straighten itself out I'll go off grid with a solar system, I almost did already...

I must say that rock in the first image is a gift...perfect fill for the road birm and no hauling -and this will reduce my need for extra fill, hugely.Underneath it is solid bedrock granite, perfect for a concrete "dob" obs pier -maybe 4'x4' and surrounded by the deck.