Gimme Shelter

We are in the process of getting a sidewalk to our front door.  When we bought the house about 7 years ago there were a few pavers to step in awkwardly to get to the front door and we always meant to replace them.  They made it difficult to mow and then you had to use the weed eater to keep them clear.  Forget getting to the front door after a snow.  Granted most people don't come to the front door, but maybe they will after our upgrade.

 

Sidewalks require a bed of crushed rock and as long as they were bringing a load for the sidewalk, Lee decided to order some additional rock to use for under his shelter.  Why do they need a shelter, you ask?  Yes, I know.  We have a 2 1/2 car garage attached to the house.  We have a three car shop. That should be sufficient for most anybody.  Certainly enough for a couple of empty nesters. But we have more vehicles than spaces. 

 

We do have a barn for parking a few vehicles, but as we are no longer using it, it has become a haven for small rodents.  Mice like to eat the rubber around electrical wires for some reason.  This is a bad thing.  I have thought about getting a semi feral cat for the barn, but I am worried it will come to the house and eat our pampered cats.  Or the dog will not recognize it as family and eat the cat!  Someone needs to send us an owl.

 

So Lee had a shelter built next to the shop for his truck and the tractor.  The farm truck has to sit in the sun and rain.  The problem is that the ground under the shelter becomes muddy when it rains.  It rains about 3 inches a month.  Every month.  That is a lot of mud.  It makes a mess on the driveway and every pile of mud on the driveway makes the ground under the shelter lower each year.

 

Lee bought some treated lumber and placed it around the bottom of the shelter to hold in the rock.  He used the tractor front loader to dump the rock and then used the bucket to smooth it a bit.  We still had to get out there and shovel and rake to get it mostly level.  Lee would never have asked me to help, because of my back issues, but I was able to do my share with no adverse consequences.

I KNOW there are no pictures of me helping, therefore this is not a provable fact, but I was there.  Really!  Someone had to hold the camera!

 

The crushed rock is called crush and run or crusher run.  It is various sizes of rock with rock dust mixed in.  As it rains and the rock bed is compressed by driving over and over, it becomes a hard surface.  It can even be scraped with the tractor blade, if you are careful.

There was enough left over for Lee to make a parking spot for the farm truck.  Now our driveway will be so pretty and clean.

 

Wait a minute!  Did we just spend all this time and money for a pretty driveway?  You would think we didn't have enough to do.  Maybe it is because Lee sent the 1974 Camaro off to be painted and he doesn't have a car to work on.
 


The sidewalk project is on hold because the delivery guys that are supposed to bring the rebar and wood for the forms to build the sidewalk are all out deer hunting.  This is not a problem in most big cities, but it is an issue around here. Well, we waited for 7 years, so another few days won't matter.