Hormones have no brains...

Since the new high school opened across the street from my mother-in-law, she's had some problems with teenagers trespassing onto the farm to fulfill their lustful desires. And no, I do not mean stealing or plundering. There's been one couple that has been run off twice during the school day, and this weekend a car actually came and parked in the middle of the field, headlights shining right on the farmhouse.  My husband was quite shocked when he heard, and asked "Have they no sense? Don't they know they're sitting out in the open between TWO houses?" We all laughed, and his uncle replied "Hormones don't have brains." And we all laughed, and Bobby nodded his head.

Obviously they don't, but I'm still flabbergasted that people will walk, in broad daylight, beside a barn near a field and boarding stables, and think no one is going to find them. At night when it's dark I can comprehend a little bit more, but parking in the middle of a farm field? I'm hoping that since they've now been called twice at night, one of them on the weekends, that the young men who have the farm rented will now remember to keep the gates closed.

On a different note...our driveway is getting paved this week!!!! :) They're scraping up the gravel and shaping things up as I type. We've waited almost 18 years for this!

school updates

Last night neighboring property owners attended a meeting about the new elementary school. Construction starts February 2016 and hopefully ends April 2017. If designated year-round, school would start July 2017. If traditional, then it would start August 2017. When will the road be paved? Probably after construction. :/  Here's the sketch of the school (currently being built in Raleigh). Our location would have it flipped the other direction. The large section is three stories, the school should hold 800 students, and there is nowhere on the site plan for mobile units to go. 

This is the property layout. Top left sketch area is the bus parking site which will also connect to the future middle school. Road at the bottom of the page is the driving entrance to the school, and is a few feet from our driveway.

See the dotted line along the bottom of the green (near the bottom of the page)?  That's where our property line is...the shrub/tree line, the edge of our chicken pen, the far fenced area of my garden, etc.  See the little beige spot beside the parking entrance? That's a sidewalk the town of Garner is requesting/requiring and it circles along the back of the school property. So in essence, the public will have a walkway along the far side of our property. So we have definitely required a fence. I'm not crazy about a chain link fence at all, but I do agree with Bobby that there has to be something besides our natural barrier on the property line. If for no other reason, but we need something to keep the chickens on our side of the yard. We may have to add a small section once they finalize the road stuff to keep them from darting out into traffic.

And here's last week status updates on South Garner High School. Since these were taken, they've started on the football stadium, but I've never driven around the block to see the stadium light poles (which I hear have been installed).

The view from Hebron Church Rd. Brick is now going up on the classroom bldg.

And the view of the classroom bldg from Clifford Rd. You can't tell it very well in this shot, but the bottom brick is a deep red, and the four bricked sections going to the top are more of a tan brick.

And the view from my sister in law's house, who lives on Clifford. Their driveway isn't  too far from where the turn lane for the buses will go. I have a feeling they are one of the three houses that will be most impacted by the school. (The other two are located on New Bethel Church Rd.)

And we're hearing more talk of more subdivisions in our area. Things are definitely changing.

South Garner High update

I took this pictures 2 days ago, and as I downloaded them from my camera, they already seem out of date.

The side view of the educational bldg, from Clifford Rd. I was amazed at the walls going up. As of today, the scaffolding is down, it loos like the stairwell is completed, and the roof is totally on.

This shows the corner view of the education bldg (near Pat's house on Clifford). Sorry for the blind up in the back of the van. The metal framework was what you saw last week. Today, all of the bldg on the left is now walled and roofed in. They're in the process of walling in the wing of the bldg in the far right.

and a closer up of the metal structure of the right wing of the bldg

What I didn't get a shot of was the new building (or wing) going up between the educational building and the gym. I think it's the cafeteria, and I'm not sure whether or not it will connect to the gymnasium. Like the gym, it's currently cinderblock. For a view of it, you need to stay on Hebron Church Rd (headed towards New Bethel Church Rd). They're certainly making progress!

changes

Someone asked me a while back about the house across the road from us. I had posted pictures as they were building, and the family has now been in it for several months. I finally got a shot of the completed house yesterday:

The builder is also renovating the farm house to the left of our house, and the change is outstanding. Hopefully I can find a before picture from tax records and then get a picture of it today.

And, in today's newspaper is an update on the school situation in Garner. It mentions that Bryan Road Elementary, like south Garner High, will house students of other schools the first two years so those campuses can be renovated. Seeing as Bryan Rd Elementary (which will be our next door neighbor) is schedule to house students in the fall of 2017, I imagine construction is going to start soon. So change is coming.  Maybe we'll get our road paved soon!

The solitude was nice while it lasted.

Tomorrow I'll try to get pictures of the progress they've made on South Garner High. They steel studs appear to be 90% in place on the academic building and in some places they've even started putting the outerwall up. The gym/cafeteria is looking more and more like a completed building as well.

And ten minutes down the road at the White Oak shopping center, Carbela's (sp?) is slated to open next week, with five new restaurants (FIVE GUYS!!! and a barbeque place...please let it be tomato based!), coming soon.

The joke that the only thing tobacco fields are growing these days is subdivisions isn't exactly true around here, but it's not far from the mark.

South Garner High School update

2/3 of the water pipes along Clifford Rd are now installed. The last two days they've been placing some metal thing (that's about the size of a vehicle) into the ground near my sister-in-law's house. The path for the sewer line connection from a nearby subdivision (through my Mom-in-law's farm) has been cleared, and below are pictures of the actual site itself:

2nd wing of the main building has now been added.

A closer view. Not exactly sure what they're doing now, but they're working day and nights.

and the 2nd building, which is nearby the one above

So far nothing has been done for the parking lots, football field, or other areas, but they are working as weather permits (and sometimes even in the rain).

quickly changing!

 The scene early Monday morning:

And the scene Monday evening:

The construction of South Garner High School has begun!

several posts in one

Anyone else having issues with google blogger? Due to some computer issues, we switched from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome for internet connection, and ever since, I've not been able to post. I can read my blog and see the blog feed for other blogs I read, but once I click on Post, all I get is a blank page. So tonight I have a little extra time, and decided to try Internet Explorer again...and it works. Go figure.  So here's a brief week in review:

Tuesday - up at 3:30 am and so we can both be ready and have breakfast before Election Day begins. What should have been a simple and easy day (low turnout, as is the case with most local elections), turned out to be eternally long as people got careless, didn't follow their checklists, and resulted in a drive to downtown Raleigh when I should have been at home. We eat supper at home at 10:35pm. And thanks to the disability lifestyle we live, we weren't in the bed until midnight. I jokingly said we should stay up three more hours just so we could say we'd been up a full 24 hours.

Wednesday - laundry and housework day...and I'm still not caught up!

Thursday - yardwork. While weed-eating, I got stung by a yellow jacket. I have mild allergic reactions to wasp and yellow jacket stings. And this is what a "mild" allergic reaction looks like:

According to webmd.com, my whole leg could swell and it would still be classified as a "mild" reaction.  And yes, I do know all the warning signs for a serious reaction, and know to advance to the nearest urgent care/dr's office/call 911 (whatever can happen within 10 minutes) without passing go or collecting $200 should any of those signs appear.

And en route home from Target Pharmacy (to get Benadryl cream and talk to the pharmacist for verification purposes), we had to check out the progress of South Garner High:

one of the views from Hebron Church Rd.

New Bethel Church Rd.

and you can now see the houses on Hebron Church Rd from New Bethel Church Rd.

 

And yes, I'm aware the pictures are blurry...I didn't ask my driver to slow down. I'm sure he would have obliged had I asked (whether grudgingly or gratefully I don't know), but seeing as he's assumed the responsibility of letting the chickens out in the mornings and locking them up in the evenings without me asking him to and it was getting towards that time to get them in, I decided it would be inconsiderate of me to ask. :)

Friday -  Quilts of Valor Day at Bernina World of Sewing. I wasn't quite feeling up to par today, so I was late getting there and stayed late (for some reason I was thinking it ended at 3 and I stayed until 2, only to get home and discover I had 1pm on the calendar...oops!), and after resting a bit I tackled some housework and errands (with supper at our spot...El Dorado) and am trying to get a few things lined up for tomorrow....the Raleigh Coin show, and maybe the Antique Show as well...maybe.

And that wraps up this crazy but productive week.

and so it began...

Last week the construction, well, the clearing of the land, for the future site of South Garner High School began. This is directly across the street from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and is about one mile from us. After years of talk and rumors and town hall meetings and letters, and about two months behind schedule, the property is finally being cleared.

 

 

Here's the sights from last Monday, about 2 days into work on the property:

 

It's unreal. Bobby says in all his life, he's never seen this stretch without trees all the way to the road. Hopefully I can post pics this week as well. You'll be amazed at the change in just one week.