What’s Up, Dock?

 

Westerhouse Creek borders our property on two sides and plays a major role in the design of our house and how we use the land.  Compared to most other waterways off the Chesapeake it is fairly small and shallow.  By small I mean it barely shows up on a map of Northampton County.  By shallow I mean that at low tide the entrance off the Bay is about 2’ deep because of sandbars.  You could walk across it.  Further in though, the creek widens and deepens.  It’s provides a home to clams, oysters, fish and all kinds of birds including ducks, geese, great blue herons and bald eagles.  The local secret is that it is also a great source for shrimp but, shhhh, don’t tell anyone.  Since it has almost zero access from the Bay it’s mostly used by only a handful of locals and a lot of the shoreline is unimproved.  I mean, who wants to pay all that money for property if you can’t get your 50’ yacht out or show off your McMansion to all the passersby?  Uhm, I do.  As a bonus, the shoreline across from our lot can never be built on because it’s a preserve.  It’s nothing but forest for as far as we can see in either direction.

Because of arthritis my sailing days are over but Cheri and I do still enjoy being on the water.  We originally thought a flat bottom 16’ power boat like a Carolina Skiff would be perfect.  The big drawback there is that it’s a power boat and we’re all about peace and quiet.  Kayaks are the answer and they’re really popular around here.  A lot of the parks in this area have kayak launches.  In fact, while we were out on a hiking trail on the sea side (ocean side vs bay side) we came across a really nice kayak launch.  It had a wooden dock that went out to the water and then an aluminum ramp that went down to a floating dock/launch.  This part was made of plastic, had a walkway around the V shaped ramp and had stainless steel rails on each side of the ramp for easing your kayak in and out of the water.  It has rollers built into two sides for rolling up and down a piling as the tide changes and that keeps it firmly in place during bad weather.  Perfect!  We traced the manufacturer of the floating section to a place in Virginia Beach.  We went down there to get more info (like cost $$$) and were given the name of a company in our area who could install it.

ShoreLifts (click here), a local dock builder, came out to the lot, listened to our needs, and chose the best location for our dock.  Our lot has steep, almost vertical, banks going down to the water but straight out back in the center is a natural depression with an easy slope that looks like it was made for access to a dock.  Ours will start at the shore line with a 40’ x 5’ traditional pier with a 10’ x 10’ section at the end forming an “L” shape.  Construction of both sections will be with wooden pilings and framing, with plastic decking.  Extending off the end of the pier will be an aluminum walkway running down to the floating plastic kayak ramp.  Right now we’re waiting for the permit process but the dock should be completed before construction on the house begins.

While we’re waiting for construction of the house to begin we’ve kept ourselves busy thinning out the woods leading back to the creek.  Because of the Chesapeake Bay Act and its 100’ restrictive setbacks we are limited to removing only trees under 6” in diameter and there can be no permanent structures within those setbacks.  The guys who did the clearing for our house were not allowed to cross the RPA lines so the thinning and clearing was left to us.

Looking around the lot I came to the belief that the previous owner had learned about the RPA restrictions after he bought the lot and felt the limited area left for construction made it too difficult to place the house he wanted to build.  He held the property for over 20 years and never tried to build on it.  When we were first looking at the lot we were told by neighbors that the restrictions made it impossible to build a house.  Talking to the folks at the county zoning department made us realize they wouldn’t permit any variations and this was what caused us to design our home ourselves to fit that area and doing that freed us up to buy the lot.

There were a few changes the previous owner was able to make.  He had a culvert installed so he could park on the property.  Unfortunately the culvert wasn’t approved by VDOT and had to be removed later by the next owners (us).  Something else he did was to clear out the undergrowth to open up the forest floor.  He must have done this in the first 5 or 10 years he owned it and then let it go after that.  I say this because all the saplings on the property (mostly Holly with a scattering of Cherry and Oak) are about the same trunk diameter (< 4”)and height (15’ to 20’).  These were the ones we would focus on to clear out the understory.

It’s these saplings we’ve been clearing and I’ve kept to a maximum trunk diameter of 4”.  Doing this we’ve allowed the remaining trees to have more room for growth and opened up the understory for a better view of the creek from the house. 

The woods have basically three levels;

1) the canopy is made up of mostly 85 year old pines standing about 80’ tall along with a few old oak trees.  The pines are Loblolly Pines with massive 24” to 30” diameter trunks and all their branches clustered in the top 25% of the tree.  I counted the growth rings of the 7 pines that were dropped to clear for the house and they averaged between 85 and 90 years.  I don’t know if this land was cleared 100 years ago or if these trees lifespan is limited to that.  I suspect it’s the lifespan thing because I had to remove 6 large fallen trees from the north side of the lot and there are still quite a few to remove on the west side.

One of these pines has fallen since we bought the lot.  The trunk broke off about 20’ up and when it fell towards the east it was trapped in other tree branches about 5’ off the ground for its full length.  I cut off all the branches and then started at the top cutting off sections of the trunk that I could haul by hand.  As I worked my way down the trunk the sections got shorter until I could no longer lift them.  The rest fell to the ground and were rolled into a wheel barrow to be hauled off to the burn pile one piece at a time.

Another Pine about 15’ away had fallen sometime in the recent past, falling towards the south.  The top 25’ of it had broken off and became trapped in a Holly, hanging about 6’ off the ground.  This was a dangerous situation and was taken on next.  I tried cutting out the Holly branches supporting the Pine top.  It finally fell but came straight down with the upper portion falling against the 20’ tall remaining trunk of the other Pine I had just removed.  Still dangerous and still had to be removed.  The easy thing to do would be to drop the 20’ trunk which would take with it the 25’ tree top leaning against it.  The problem was that the RPA rules say you can’t remove anything larger than 6” in diameter and that trunk was at least 30” in diameter.

When designing the house we made the 3 car garage resemble a carriage house/barn with the center stall being a drive-through with a large dormer overhead to make the attic look like a hay loft.  That dormer has a door and an overhead beam that will support a block and tackle for “hauling” the hay.

Cheri found a pair of 3:1 blocks in a local antique shop.  When I added 50’ of 1/2” braided rope we had a block and tackle set with a 6:1 advantage.

This block and tackle was just what I needed to safely bring down that 25’ tall leaning tree top.  I wrapped a tow strap around a large standing tree and attached one end block to that.  A second strap was thrown around the leaning tree top about midway up and the second block was attached to that.  With the help of a friend we safely toppled the tree top with a few easy tugs on the line.

The other fallen trees I removed were older, some fairly rotten, and all flat on the ground.  Much easier for cutting up and clearing.  One of these was an 8” diameter hardwood that laid across a depression in the ground and the exposed trunk had dried out with little rot.  I cut this into 5’ lengths and used these for steps that I cut into the hillside leading down to the future location of the dock.

At the NW corner of the lot is a natural clearing that juts out into the creek.  It has several ancient fallen trees that resemble drift wood and offers what is probably the best view of the creek.  Back in January we chose this as the perfect spot for a few chairs where we could sit and meditate on the beauty around us.  By June we realized we needed some shade and chose a spot about 50’ to the east that was surrounded by Pines and Hollys and still offered a great view down the creek.  The only drawback was that it had a slight slope leading down to the steep drop-off into the creek.  For comfortable seating we needed to level off the area.  I decided to build a berm with some of those fallen tree trunks and then fill in behind it with dirt.  We asked Major (our Land Disturbance dude) if he knew where we could get a truckload of topsoil and the next day he delivered one for us at no charge.  People around here are sooooo nice.

For the berm I used five 10” diameter logs, each about 5’ long (limited by what I could carry).  I placed them about 4’ back from the bank and dug them into the bank leaving about 6” exposed, enough to level out the area behind.  For now, wooden stakes hold them in place but I plan to run a few lengths of rebar through each log for a more permanent solution.  It took about 40 wheelbarrow loads of dirt to level it off behind the logs and then I covered that with a layer of mulch I had previously scraped off from the area.  The video below walks you down the path and into our new sitting area (the living room).