The Front loader Attacks

Here it is almost the middle of November. Things have been moving very quickly here.

Nano - National Novel Writing Month - is going very well. Both Diane and I are about a 1/4 of the way through our word counts. The words are flowing very well, it is more a matter of time to sit down and pound them out.

The patio is going very well also. We are hoping to get the delivery date for the hot tub later this week. We have been working very hard at it. Jon rented a front loader for a day to help put in the gravel and sand. It arrived at 6am and we were out to work as the sun came up. We wanted an early start since it is dark before 5pm now. I was also hoping we could use the front loader for a few other jobs if there was time. Unfortunately, it rained the day before. The soggy yard did not appreciate the heavy front loader and it made a mess of the yard.

And yes, that mess is mainly where I re-laid most of the sod from the patio area. It is now buried under several inches of muck and yuck. However we were able to finish digging it out, put the gravel in and the sand in about 5 hours - which is much less than it would have taken by hand.

Here is pictures of the rest of the digging out, the gravel after it was tamped down (yes I know it looks like dirt), and of the sand being put on the paper (weed cover) and yes, it looks like dirt as well. Then there is a picture of Jon standing on the first three pavers he put in. But we stopped there to do some other projects on our list.

Diane has a tree all picked out to hang a swing from, but we need to do a bit of clearing to get to it. We thought we would use the front loader to do that. We figured we could do this easily in less than half an hour and then break for lunch. In order to get to the tree, you pass what we affectionately call the Fenner Pond. There is a hole in the ground that is about 5 feet long, 2 feet wide and 12 inches deep. Coming off this is a tiny riverette - about 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep. We figured the big monster front loader would not have a problem cross that to get to the stumps. The front wheels did fine, but the back wheels got stuck.

We never did get the tree stumps out or a path cleared to the swing tree. Instead we spent an hour and a half getting the front loader unstuck and creating Fenner Pond II, and our very own lava flow (okay, it's mud - but as we rolled the front loader back and forth it looked like lava flowing out).

There were several times I thought I might drown while sitting in the front loader waiting for Jon to put more dirt under the tires. The hole about 2 1/2 feet deep and the water from pond one just kept rushing it, but we had severed the drainage riverette with the tire tracks. (I reopened the drainage riverette, but it has been 4 days since then, and it is still just as full.)

We finally got some cement blocks under the tires to give extra traction to get it out. The mud swallowed them up very quickly and we have no idea where they are and they can stay buried too, for all we care.

I managed to stay relatively clean through this process, but Jon was covered in mud from mid-calf down. It was so watery that it looked like hot chocolate, but it caked on his jeans like clay/mud.

Here is what the "island" looked like this summer when we were in the process of buying. After lunch we changed tactics and decided to flatten out the circle that our driveway makes. You can't really tell from the pictures, but most of the "weeds" are over 5 ft tall. The island itself is about 100 ft by 100 ft and sort of horseshoe shaped. With the garage facing the round part of the horseshoe - more or less.

At some time, there were dirt mounds dumped on the island. So the varying height is 3 to 10 feet depending on where you are standing. The natural terrain there is not level. There is about a 2 foot drop with is divided by another riverette (actually the same one but at the other end). Jon spent the rest of the daylight hours moving the mounds of dirt and "flattening" the top area. He didn't get to finish, but made good progress.

Rehearsals for the play are also moving along. Jon and I are on the stage at the same time, so can't get pictures of that. But will try to get a picture of Diane in rehearsals tomorrow to put up.

Enjoy Fall!