19 September 2019
The Goshen Mountain Landscaping crew arrived
about 8:30. Tammy and Jake worked until
lunch putting the front walkway back together… even more beautifully arranged
than the original. Now that the slate is
resting on a proper compacted stone and stone dust base and sloped to drain
back towards the driveway, we expect it to last much longer than the first
attempt. While that was being
accomplished, Nate and I continued work on the stone wall along the road south
of the driveway. After lunch, Tammy,
Jake, and I finished that section. In
four days of effort, we have completed 95 feet of wall, or about 28% of what
needs to be constructed. Doing the math,
building the entire wall will take about 14 work days. The bad news: both Tammy and I are convinced
that there isn’t enough stone for what is planned in what I thought were our
vast stockpiles.
18 September 2019
Tammy, Nate, and Jake arrived about 8:30 as I
was busy scratching away with the Kubota, digging up more small rocks for use
inside the stone walls. Over the next
several hours, we finished the stretch of wall along the south side of the
driveway. Marty, Merry, and Chree came
out to inspect progress mid-morning.
Chree particularly liked how we incorporated a maple tree into the
center of the wall… with lots of room for it to grow ever larger. Chree was not so happy (the day’s
understatement) that I authorized Tammy to buy a load of A-stone, which is
crushed rock in the 2″ to 3″ size. The
not-so-crazy reason for buying rock in Leicester is that we were spending
increasing amounts of time trying to find those size rocks anywhere on the
build site (at many dollars per hour for labor) when a couple of yards of
A-stone cost twenty bucks or so. Not
only was that far more cost effective, but the A-stone, being all jagged, makes
a much more solid wall than the round stones native to our property. Nate left after lunch for an
appointment. By the end of the
afternoon, we had laid the base for the wall along Lake Dunmore Road to the
south of our driveway and had the next course of stone pretty well done.
17 September 2019
Tammy, Nate, and Jake pulled in just before
9. A wall building we did go. By the end of the day 40 feet of the wall
along the south side of the driveway had been finished. Chree blessed the construction style, though
she wasn’t exactly in raptures. What’s
left of me is here to tell you that trying to physically keep up with two guys
⅓ my age for two days is just a tad exhausting… but so much fun!
16 September 2019
A very busy day!!!! Tammy arrived shortly after 8:30, followed
soon thereafter by Nate and Jake Grandfield, another of her strong-backs. After getting two rocks laid for the terminus
of the wall on the south side of the driveway, Tammy left for a meeting in
Brandon. Nate and Jake used that hiatus
to mow Kate’s and Marty & Merry’s lawns, for which Goshen Mountain
Landscaping has standing lawn care contracts.
I chalk-marked the slate front walkway, then took a picture of the
layout so that we can reassemble it once a proper underlayment has been put
in. Nate and Jake removed the slate,
whereupon I excavated three Kubota bucket loads of dirt and a thin layer of stone
dust from the walkway. Nate fetched a
yard of ¾″ crushed stone with Tammy’s dump trailer, a portion of which was
compacted into the walkway hole. That
stone base was covered with filter fabric, then a full inch of stone dust. A few minutes after Tammy’s return, Bob
Laporte arrived with his super-sized backhoe.
He quickly moved the monster cornerstone rock and it’s siblings out of
the way of the significant depression that existed on the northeast corner of
the driveway. I then drove Bob back to
his place (a mile down the road) to fetch his dump truck and 7 yards of bank
run gravel, which was deposited into said depression. Under Tammy’s direction, Bob used his backhoe
to reposition the five huge rocks that there was no way our Kubotas would ever
move. Just before he departed, Bob
pulled a bunch of good wall building rocks out of the woods on the north side
of the driveway, as they were beyond the reach of our Kubotas and too big to
retrieve by hand. Is it lunch time
yet? After inhaling some sustenance, we
spent the afternoon laying the base rocks for the stone wall on the south side
of the driveway, getting 30 feet (about half that distance) done by quitting
time. Chree arrived home from a week’s
journey in the midst of that work. When
she toured the build site after Tammy and the guys had left, Chree had some
concerns about how the wall would look when complete…
15 September 2019
With my Kubota, demolished an old stone wall on
the south side of the driveway and prepared the dirt base for the new
wall. After lunch, removed brush that
has been impeding play on the 16th fairway of our Frisbee golf
course. The lake level now is 13″ below
the top of the dock and the water temperature is 65 degrees.
14 September 2019
Eight o’clock found me up t’ Tammy’s, shoveling
crushed stone into 4½ gallon plastic
buckets… eight of them this time. Returned
to Fern Lake and excavated the area under the Shop exterior door threshold
where the too steep (and thus much too slippery) gravestone ramp is being
replaced with shallow gravestone steps.
(Note: At the time the ramp was being built, I was told in quite strong
terms that was a bad idea. Lessons
learned.) Tammy wants 8″ of drainage
stone under the steps, so once the hole was the right size and depth, I dumped
in all eight plastic buckets so carefully filled this morning. One guess as to whether that was enough
stone. So, late morning, I returned to
the scene of the crime (good thing Tammy lives only 10 minutes away) and stole
another eight buckets of stone. Fingers
crossed that this will be enough to finish the Shop door steps base plus the
house drip edges. Saw Tammy this trip
and we decided that she’d better bring another whole load of stone when we work
on the front walkway and barn steps.
More lessons learned. Went to
Goodro’s after leaving Tammy’s to buy back the Loctite PL Premium®
construction adhesive and the Geocel Pro Flex® clear flexible
caulking that I returned for credit after finishing the front steps
project. Just ‘cause I could, spent the
afternoon playing with the Kubota.
Completely took apart the remnants of a stone wall that bordered the
driveway north side inwards from the road.
Purpose of that oh, so satisfying destruction was to establish a level 4
feet wide base for a rebuilt stone wall that will connect into the one along
the road. Also removed a hillock between
our mailbox and the roadside phone pole.
Rocks in that hill have been the nemesis of my lawn mower blade all
summer. Nevermore!
13 September 2019
Tammy Walsh (owner of Green Mountain Landscaping) and her long-time helper, Geryll Robinson, got here just before 9. We toured the property discussing the long list of one major and nine minor projects that have been awaiting Tammy’s availability. The big one is to construct a 3′ high by 330′ long stone wall along our Lake Dunmore Road property line and part way down our driveway. Tammy and Ger left again to get 5 cubic yards of crushed gravel needed to finish the surface between our asphalt driveway and the barn’s overhead door. While they were gone, completed most of Delores’ reactivation checklist, as our annual logging extravaganza is but two weeks hence. Mouse damage this year was very limited until a couple of months ago, as we used Sniff ‘n’ Stop® packets throughout the RV over the winter (my sister-in-law Mary’s recommendation). Unfortunately, didn’t notice the note on the box that they’re only effective for six months or so until far too late. Once Tammy and Ger finished spreading the crushed gravel, I used Tammy’s plate compactor to flatten the bejesus out of the dirt while the two women started repairing damage to our concrete paver patio. Four areas had settled (the worst being in the critical area around the drain that catches water coming off the roof valley) and the polymeric sand used to bind the pavers together had not properly bonded when the patio was constructed, leaving many deep cracks. Nate Clark (one of Tammy’s other employees… and her nephew) showed up early afternoon and was promptly dispatched to get a load of ¾″ crushed stone, as I needed a small (sic) quantity to fill in roof edge drip lines around the house and to top off the stone and wood crib walkway down to Marty & Merry’s. I took six plastic buckets worth of stone off Nate’s load, thinking that would be more than enough for my needs. Before sending Nate up to her place in Goshen to dump the rest of the load, Tammy asked me at least three times if I was sure I had enough. You can guess the correct answer, which I came up with right after Nate left… By quitting time, our patio was completely repaired and I had a long list of tasks to complete over the weekend which will expedite the work starting Monday morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)