Chapter 118...Paving And Developing Another Lot

Off Grid...Chapter 118 Today's story is about the last of our paving job and an old lot we have. As you know we started slowly paving the driveway for the past 2 years. We have done small sections at a time so we didn't have heart failure over the price Now we are finally to the last section 7-28 The fun begins. Today the paving crew is here to start working on our driveway. We are having it paved just until the pond/barn area. We aren't paving the rest because we don't want it torn up by the cow people when the bring in the big hay and cattle trucks. We also got a call form Jimmy. our grader who has been occupied with a another big job this year. He is finally able to get equipment onto our lot to start working. Of course we have both different crews working at the same time so Mike and I will have to oversee 2 jobs in 2 different locations at the same time. The graders start out by tearing up our old gravel and getting down to the base of our road. Mike asked them to make sure "this" time that our drive is slightly sloped towards one side of the road so the water run off will go into the spouts and not wash out the end of our drive. They are here for the day just prepping the drive. The drive is marked and ready for asphalt which will happen tomorrow. 7-29 The paving crew is here and waiting for the asphalt truck. Mike and I go to the lot to check on the progress. The lot is lower than the road so we are having Randy cut into the back hill and make the front part the same height as the road. Unfortunately we have to take down a lot of trees....more firewood for others. We have plenty 7/29-8/8 Randy pushing a tree down with the track hoe. The power of these machines amazes me. Moving a tree down the hill. Lot is getting cleared. OK..time to get back home. I see the asphalt truck First truck of asphalt is down. They go back to get another truck load. Back at the farm the guys are ready. The asphalt is unloaded from the truck and onto the paver. The father is on the paver and steering while the 2 guys on the back of the paver control the depth and width of the asphalt being dumped out. Moving right along and almost done with laying out the asphalt. Then one of the guys tamp down the edges. They make it to the end with an extra 40 feet of paving...we'll take any extra Once they are at the end they have to hand roll that part of the drive. While they were finishing up the cows came down to cool off, lol. They let the pavement cool down a bit and then roll out the rest of it. The paving is done Now we just have to wait for them to come back to do the curbs. The lot is taking much longer to do but it is almost cleared. The big logs being loaded up. We also got some cool boulders to bring back home..unfortunatley one of them fell in the middle of the driveway. The good thing is it wasn't on the fresh pavement Mike's new boulders in place. He is very happy about them. The lot is done being graded. Mike and I put down 150 pounds of grass seed and we installed some gates. That's all for now. We now have some smaller jobs to accomplish for the rest of the Summer and Fall. Then it's time to hibernate I hope you enjoyed our story. Lisa [+] Rate this post positively

Chapter 79...Our New Concrete Patio Table

Off Grid...Chapter 79 7-11 Today is the day Mike and I pick up our new outside table. Woo hoo. It's about an hour away so we hook up the trailer and start the drive. When we get to the statuary we have a choice of 2 table tops. We pick the one that has more brown chips in it. Did you ever wonder why they make such funky colored outdoor furniture?Things should blend not stand out like a sore thumb, lol. The top of the table is so heavy that they have it on a skid. They load that onto our trailer first. Then we load up the pedestal and the bench tops and legs. It's a very slow ride home with about 1200 pounds on the trailer and driving a very windy road. Yay- we are through our gates. Now we just have to make it to the top. We start up the driveway and we are almost at the steepest part and Mike says "do you think we can make it?" I really don't think so. We are pretty heavy. While Mike was waiting for my answer he slowed down and in that little hesitation going up the hill the Jeep started to struggle. Oh well. We can't make it up. Time for plan B, lol. We pull over into a fairly level spot at the bottom of our steep spot and leave the trailer there. Here is our loaded trailer. We get up to the top and then we get the tractor. We have to load each piece into the tractor bucket and then bring it to the patio. First we load up the bench posts and drop them off on our side walkway. Then we go back down and load up the table base and the bench tops. Everything except for the top on our walkway. Last thing is the table top which is extremely heavy. Mike and I can't lift it so we carefully slide it off the skid and into the tractor bucket as far as it will go. We also leave that in the walkway. We can't bring the tractor onto the patio so we will have to walk everything over. Using the hand truck we got all of the pieces onto the patio. The top is just to heavy for us so we will have to wait until we can get some help. 7-12 I have an "orphan" garden with some extra plants that got planted next to the green building. I dig them up and move them to the garden in front of the house. This is just a temporary spot until we find real plants. Then we worked on the door to the green building. It is really hard to open and close it using the handles. Mike says it will be easier if we take one of the handles off. So Mike stands on a bucket out side the building and I stand on a bucket inside the building. I hold the bolt with the vice grips while Mike unscrews the screw from outside. I end up breaking the vice grips. Mike says "you animal no one breaks vice grips, lol" I asked him how old they were. He says about 25 years. Well there ya go- at least you got your moneys worth, lol. Here is Mike working on the handle. Ah now it opens and closes much easier. 7-13 We woke up this morning to another cool cloud picture over the mountains. And about an hour later. We feel kind of slow today. Mike says we should try and find Randy(the bear/bull) and see if he can help us with the table after work. Mike calls Jimmy to see where he is at. He is at his bigger property planting trees with Randy. We are in luck because Randy is with him so we go over to talk to them. We get over there and Jimmy has done a beautiful job on his property. It's nice having your own grading crew to work on your own property, lol. We all end up taking a break under the covered shelter next to his pond. We end up staying and talking for a few hours. So much for getting work done. Randy told us he would stop over after work to help us with the table top. On our way back in the gate I took a picture of our new sign. The cows are starting to nibble on the corners of the sign. It's a nice day so we decide to do some painting. Mike starts by finishing the paint on the side of the house by the satellite dish. I move over and start to paint the first coat on the second side. The first coat is done on the second side. Now that we have a first coat on the back and the sides of the house we can see what has to be filled in. Mike fills in any of the holes and mars with caulk. Here are all of the touch ups and marks that will get covered with the second coat of paint. Randy shows up with more help after dinner. He brings one of our "good" kids who used to come to our skating rink. He has a wife and kids of his own now. It seems so odd because we knew him when he was just a teenager. Anyway, I am so happy for the extra help. Now that there are 4 guys here I can just stay out of the way and let them take care of it. Here they are getting the table top on. And it is done. The table top is on and the table is set up. There seems to be a problem. I go and sit down on one of the benches and it's too low. I tell Mike "this can't be right." He sits down and tries to tell me the benches are ok. So now I have to get out the tape measure and start measuring the distance from our kitchen chair to the table. And I also bring over one of our resin chairs and sit on that at the outside table. Yup, the benches are definitely too low. I will call the statuary tomorrow and ask them if we got the wrong legs. Lisa