A few extra photos

Stump removal

Zach made chainsaw holders for the 4-wheeler, tractor, jeep, and backhoe

The water tank

Completed gate and sign

Wildlife....

Hello.... and goodbye... to June!!!

Homeschooling, pregnancy, a wedding, heatwaves, and 2 birthdays. Those are a few of my excuses for not posting the past month. Totally lame... I know.

   Although there haven't been any posts, there is still a lot happening in the world of Hidden Hills.

  We celebrated my sister Emily's 40th birthday up at the land. We had an insane amount of good food (Thanks Mom!!), tons of helpers and so much fun! There was a lightning storm the night we camped, and it was a little scary!!! During the day we had good weather and good company. 

  
  Our application for drilling a well was submitted and we are almost done with the waiting game. We think that around the 2nd week of August we will be able to drill!!!! Yea!!! We are currently taking donations ;) Just kidding! But we are most likely going to sell our house in Vegas and ask to rent it back for a few months so that we will have equity from our house to really push all our projects forward. So if you know anyone looking to move TO Las Vegas... Send them our way!!

   We purchased a 1500 gallon water tank. This tank should fit on the back of one 6x6 and  will alleviate the stress of bringing water up to the land by 50 gallon drums. So even if it does take longer to drill, we will have a backup water storage system and we wont have to ration water as much.

   Zach did some MAJOR work at the foot of our driveway. He built some beautiful gabions to attach our gate to. One weekend Marshall, Simon and Lincoln were there to help with one set. Another weekend our church scout troop came up for a camp out and helped fill the remaining two. 

   Gabion: A gabion (from Italian gabbione meaning "big cage"; from Italian gabbia and Latin cavea meaning "cage") is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, military applications and landscaping. 

   Zach has found a bunch of materials that we need for building the barn. We just keep going back and forth as to whether we should buy them, or try to make them ourselves.  We could potentially save $3,000-$6,000 by making our own trusses, poles and siding. But it will be time consuming. With baby #5 arriving soon, possibly listing our  house for sale, and Zach's work schedule.... we are trying to sort out financial advantage vs time advantage.

    This is the style and almost exact shape of the barn we are looking to build. We have someone coming up to Hidden Hills to give us a quote tomorrow on bulldozing the 70x70 foot area we need leveled. We may end up renting a dozer and doing it ourselves. We'll see. If we had a little more in savings... Zach would take off 6 weeks of work and just get it ALL DONE. It's killing him to not be able to just build, clear, and shape our little ranch all by himself. He hates the thought of buying things he can make. I'm lucky to be married to someone who loves to work hard and takes pride in doing things himself (and with family members who like helping). 

  To all those friends and family members who have come up in the past 6 weeks and been worked to death and gotten bug bites galore... THANK YOU!! We could not have gotten Hidden Hills manicured to the place where it is, without you. We love you and thank you for your enthusiasm and support. When we hit roadblocks, it's your energetic support that keeps us going!  

  This pretty much sums up life right now. Hopefully we'll be able to have a few more things finalized before this baby comes!

  Remember... God is good... ALL the time.