We installed two cameras on the bluff last weekend. The first is a purpose built time-lapse camera that cannot be monitored remotely. It's desgined to be waterproof and take a snapshot at a user defined interval (I chose one minute) and to build a movie automatically out of the images. A set of four lithium AA batteries and a 32 GB SD card gives at least four months of time lapse. The camera is set to stop at night and start again the next day. The camera I chose was the Brinno BCC100 Construction Camera https://www.brinno.com/construction-camera/BCC100.  The second camera I added was a solar powered PT camera model Go PT made by Reolink. It features a 32 GB SD Card for time lapse and event...

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This week the excavation of the pad and surrounding area began in earnest. They are building up a downslope berm that will be filled in with the cut material from upslope. As a bonus, the rain allowed a rainbow to form leading to the Bluff Barndo site. There's gold in them thar hills!  ...

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We got to the site today and were surprised to see a few new things. First, a vibratory sheepsfoot roller was being offloaded. That will be used for compacting the downslope fill. It looked brand new and also had a blade on the front. Maybe I can drive it. The other thing that was a pleasant surprise was the first use of the well pump. I had wired it up so our GC (more on him and his company later) could use the water to fill the tank they use to spray down the cut material to aid in compaction and settlement.          It was nice to see so much excavation progress being made. Our crew said that they would be cutting around 8 feet below the topsoil upslope and moving that downslope. They...

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The 45,000 pounds of steel arrived and was off-loaded to a dirt pad near our house pad. It took an hour or so for our erector to offload all the steel on the truck with his forklift. Another 2,000 pounds will be here this Thursday. All materials checked off and in mostly good shape. We took the pallet of hardware and stored that in our storage shed to leep prying eyes and hands off our property.  Steel on the Truck      ...

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Busy day today. We picked out and bought the granite for the kitchen, utility and master bath. The granite is finished in a leather texture which really complements the stone pattern.  The backsplash we like is the top polished marble tile. We also covered up the sheet metal per manufacture's recommendation and installed some motion sense lighting (post) and always on lighting (two in back) to add a bit of security while the steel waits for construction. The visqueen covers also keep nosy people from the most suseptable theft.  Horses on the Property Security Lights Granite and Tile  ...

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Yesterday I saw this herd of wild horses on the road leading to our property. They waked right through an open gate to get to the better eating grounds. Black Horse  ...

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  Click on this link below to view the video   Barndo on a Bluff Episode 1 Here is the first construction camera post. The time frame is from after surface grubbing through to road base build up on the level pad. The final pad will be six inches above the native soil and will prepare the pad for the foundation pour. Note the horses on the hill behind us at 1:22 into the video. Click on the square to view the video full screen.   ...

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