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The Tamarack Ledger

Notes on houses, lots and public records in the Inland Northwest

The ground

Soil, slope, drainage, wells, septic drainfields, snow storage and the wildfire fuel that sits within a hundred feet of a wall.

Every entry in this ledger

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A concrete walk meeting the brick veneer and slab edge of a modest ranch house in Spokane County on a February afternoon, low sun raking across a hairline crack and a dusting of old snow at the foundation line, shot from a kneeling angle about three feet back.

GR-003The ground

Snow Load and Snow Storage on a Rural Lot

A roof is built to a ground snow load set by the adopted code. A driveway needs its own plan for where the plowed snow actually goes. Both decide what a lot can carry.

A county soil survey map spread open on a tailgate in October, a hand holding the corner against the wind, larch turning gold on the ridge behind, low afternoon light.

GR-001The ground

What a Lot Assessment Tells a Buyer

An ecological assessment of a rural building lot covers wetlands, buffers, soils, and slope. Here is what a household can read before siting a house or septic

A rural house at the edge of a pine stand in October, low morning light raking across a mowed strip of grass, a rake and a pile of cut limbs in the foreground, the lowest tree branches pruned well above the brush line.

GR-002The ground

Ladder Fuels and the Hundred-Foot Zone

Ladder fuels carry fire from grass to brush to canopy. Here is what a rural household clears, and what cost-share programs pay for.