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Woke up on Friday to rain, so I thought driveway repair work would be postponed.
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I was wrong.
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There they were, not bright… but definitely early.
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And working in the rain.
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Dirt was dumped.
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Dirt was spread.
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And mud was made.
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Work continues on the driveway.
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Dirt and gravel are brought in, dumped, spread …
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And smoothed.
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At times it looks like some weird sort of race.
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Bigger boys, bigger toys.
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Was my husband out there chatting during the process?
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I think you know the answer to that.
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It’s a good thing I don’t like to nap during the day.
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Because when they do the section in front of the garage, they’re literally right on the kitchen porch doorstep.
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When the paving crew reached the end of the driveway tear down, it was time to remove the rusty old culvert.
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How rusty was it you ask?
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Rusty enough that it literally fell apart in their hands. Mind you, this was the same culvert the state deemed perfectly serviceable last year when a road improvement project skipped by our property with nary a glance.
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In the middle of the removal process?
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Someone had to go out and chat.
Please take note it wasn’t me.
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Old rusted culvert out, new plastic culvert that should last for 50+ years in.
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And since my husband was supervising?
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He had them lay and cover the full 40 feet instead of the 25 originally planned as not to waste the extra length he’d paid for.
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Naturally, this required more chatting.
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Every morning when the work crew shows up?
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My husband has to chat.
I truly believe the worst torture imaginable for this man would be to lock him in a room by himself with no one to talk to.
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When conversation halted…. fabric was laid, bad dirt was removed and better dirt was delivered.
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It’s a good thing our neighbors are morning people and far away, because things be noisy up in here.
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Dirt was delivered.
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Dirt was spread.
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And about mid day?
Things started to go wrong.
I noticed it got quiet and figured there had to be a reason.
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While I’m no expert on heavy machinery, something looked a little off here … even to me.
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Definitely an oh sh*t moment.
One broken hydraulic hose brought work to a standstill.
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We woke up to the remains of an overnight downpour.
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When having your driveway repaired, excess water is not welcome.
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There were two extremely large puddles wreaking havoc with all that new oh so damned expensive dirt.
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And while the birds and the visiting ducks liked their new muddy bath…
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I was less than thrilled.
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Naturally His Royal Highness wanted to investigate.
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He’s such a timid little guy I thought the big equipment would frighten him, but he’s more afraid of the workers than the machines.
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Growing bored with the earth movers he ran up the choke cherry tree before I had a chance to stop him.
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The desire is there, but the skills are still lacking.
😉
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There’s a whole lot of dirt moving going on at Casa River.
Dirt is dug up.
Dirt is hauled off.
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New and apparently better dirt is brought in.
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And for the price they’re charging, it better be truly spectacular dirt.
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Fabric is laid under the new dirt. Apparently it doesn’t like the old dirt and must have a barrier to prevent cootie contamination.
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The new dirt is spread and tamped down.
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And the new culverts await their new home.
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Rocks are mixed with the dirt.
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And at 5:00pm we had a not so lovely line of tortured lawn and a driveway filled with heavy machinery to keep us company overnight.
🥴
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After all the old pavement was hauled away….
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We were down to dirt and apparently a good bit of sand…
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Which, as it turns out…. is not good at all.
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At the same time our driveway was being destroyed and rebuilt the neighbor was having theirs worked on as well.
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Which means Lord Dudley Mountcatten has a hard time finding a quiet place to sleep.
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An inconvenienced cat is a horrible thing.
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Sand is bad for drainage and after scraping off the tar and a layer of topsoil, sand and clay is what they found.
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Which meant digging down a solid foot and hauling it away.
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Of course work could progress much more quickly if my husband wouldn’t go out and chat up the crew every hour on the hour.
🤣
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Bright and early in the morning it started… and I’m sure the neighbors were thrilled. Good thing they’re far away because nothing about this project is going to be quiet.
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I was still in my pj’s at 7:00am so I watched the crew tear up our driveway from the windows.
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It’s quite a process, driveway replacement. And though I never paid much attention to it being done elsewhere…
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When it’s literally right on your kitchen doorstep? It’s a bit more interesting.
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First step? Heavy equipment to rip up the old tar.
Think Tonka trucks for adults.
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The backhoe made short work of our old cracked and rutted pavement.
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And while the machine operators were busy, there was a lot of down time for the laborers.
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Every section that was ripped up had to be loaded into trucks and hauled away.
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There was a crew of 5.
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And by 9:00 am they had most of it torn up.
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Of course the truck has to drive half an hour to the pit to dump it, and then half an hour back…. so again, lots of down time.
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To be continued….
In minute and excruciating detail. You know the drill.
😉
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Remember when my husband tore holes in the garage siding with his new and apparently quite powerful weed whacker?
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It was the first thing you see when you step out the kitchen door …
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And yesterday, he’d had enough.
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I know nothing about vinyl siding installation but was assured you had to start in the middle in order to remove the bottom piece.
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It seemed like an awful lot of work just to replace one section.
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But after a few hours the damaged section was removed…
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And everything was back to normal.
Until the next time…
😉
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After an almost two week hiatus from working in the crap cave cellar… for reasons that will be discussed later….the husband was back on track.
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The far right corner was complete so the ceiling work started moving outward.
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I was called in to help numerous times because the price of plywood went up again and my spouse switched from the higher grade to the rougher stuff which was much harder to work with. Imagine if you will…. me, with my bad knee climbing on the step stool and trying to hold a sheet of wood in place over my head.
It was not a pretty sight. Nor a quiet one. I never realized there were so many colorful ways to say hurry up before I was roped in to helping.
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In between curses, I checked out his treasure. An old Bell and Howell movie projector, those horrible figural whisky bottles people used to collect in the ‘70s, a rather nice Italian pepper grinder and another rooster.
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Skeeter Skoot? I can only imagine the horrible chemicals they wanted us to spray ourselves with then back then.
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And finally… it looks like my husband will be giving classes on junk collecting. Reserve your seat now, it’s sure to be a popular seminar.
🥴
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River's world..... 