Building Our Sangha Shed
Preparing the Land
I bought all of the materials two days after my birthday. On October 14th, I spent four hours in the Lowes store in Medford and spent about $1400 altogether. I rented a truck from Budget Rental, loaded the materials at Lowes and took it home.
I got the material stacked neatly near the southern edge of the house pad. As I was unloading the truck I realized that several cars were driving slowly or stopping on the road down in the valley to observe my activity. I was noticed......
The pile was all arranged to make the building process a little easier. I planned to start on Thursday morning to dig the foundation to a level work area. I did not expect the work to be too hard. I expected there would be lots of rock within inches of the sandy surface.
I decided the location of the shed would be where we had placed our tent when we stayed on the land for a few nights back in September. I had thought I would move the small juniper tree that is about in the middle of the planned location. I got advice from Terry's nursery on what to do. He said that if it was growing between the rocks that its' survival probability was something like 20% if I tried to move it. The roots might be too intertwined with the rocks and would make it difficult to get the main tap root out without much damage. I abandoned the idea to move the tree and left it in place. I decided to locate the shed a little closer to the road, but still 35 feet from the roadway edge.
I would also have to fill in the big hole that George dug out for the engineer to decide on the viability to locate the house on this pad. I had already been removing buckbrush and dead trees and the pile along the south edge of the house pad grew taller and longer every day!
This 'before' photo above is from the point where the driveway came onto the old house pad. The 'Mother' Juniper provides a bit of shade for the planned shed in the afternoon and is just 18 inches onto the neighboring lot. The tree needed some trimming to get rid of the dead branches that posed a threat to the new shed and people playing under it.
The large pile of rock was from the soil test hole and I would have to refill the hole. I had already started removing the brush and the hillside needed a good raking to clean up rocks and dendritus to make it look better.
In this 'intermediate' photo I have removed most of the smaller buckbrush and have started to rake from the top of the grade near the road. Buck Brush is a very prickly, thorny, 'tear-your-flesh-apart' shrub that Jesus might have used to make his crown of thorns from. I was torn and scratched from wrestling with it. The layer of dirt on the hillside was about 3 inches deep and was like face powder. I shoveled a lot of that 'dust' into the hole where the rock had come out of. I planned to use the hole for the dirt and rocks I had raked down the hill and the pile of rock would then be used as fill for the planned patio to the east of the shed.
I recognized the 'Mother' Juniper was not on our land. I estimated that about 1/3rd of her mass was dead. I wanted to trim the branches right away. But, I decided to go to the Recorder's Office to get an address. I wrote a letter to the attorney for the trust that owned the lot. I decided I'd take action even if I never heard back by the following Spring.
At the foot of the Juniper were four 'babies' that were clearly on our side of the lot line. I wanted to protect and nurture them against the day the mother would topple from a high wind and/or gravity. I pruned the lower branches on the babies, a few of which had been abused by deer cleaning the felt off their antlers. I removed one of the babies altogether since it was in poor shape from the rubbing.
The same three baby junipers but looking north along the property line toward the road. They are each about 30 inches tall and are growing out of a root of the Mother Juniper.
This photo is 'after' I got the raking mostly done, the hole filled and the brush removed at the end of the day, October 16th, 2010. It sure looked better than it did before.
Between the test pit on the right and the car on the left - is a 12 inch short juniper. This will be saved, left where it is, fed some real dirt and fertilizer and have a fence around it to protect it. It will be five feet to the south of the shed.
This photo is 'before' I got the last buck brush removed on October 17th, 2010. That last bush was the hardest to get out. It also had a long and large diameter rattlesnake skin draped around the interior of the branches. I shivered at the thought of such a snake being in our area. I hoped it had a sense of professional courtesy toward us!
The blaze orange string proved the Mother Juniper was on our neighbors parcel. So is the smaller juniper farther down the hill. Both are just 18 inches onto their land. I had asked Brad if anyone could build on that lot. He studied the slope a while and said, "Nope, not without some huge expense for soil testing to support the house, but more limiting is that a septic system would not be possible because of the slope."
This 'after' photo looks east down the driveway after 17 of the buck brush shrubs had been removed. Backhoe George had done most of the pulling. I used my car to drag the shrubs to the fire spot. One last bush needed to be dragged up onto the house pad for burning. It looked much better than when we first got there in September.
This photo is 'after' I got the raking done, the hole filled and the brush removed at the end of the day, October 16th, 2010.
This photo is 'before' I got the last buck brush shrub removed. The piles for the fire were getting longer and higher.
This photo is 'after' the last buck brush was removed on October 17th, 2010.
Now, I was ready to start building the Sangha Shed! And, I waited for the first opportunity to burn the buck brush pile. I ordered a truck load of crushed rock to put on the pad where the shed would go and as a driveway cover to reduce the issue of mud.
The first chilly air of October finally hit today. I had to wear a long sleeve shirt for the first time at the beginning and the end of the day. I would be rushing to 'giterdone' before the first rains come.
Links to Other Photo Essays About the Sangha Shed
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