Feeding Frenzy
Yesterday, Cyndie captured this video of the incredibly heavy traffic we’ve been witnessing lately at the hummingbird feeder. How they navigate without colliding is beyond me.
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Scenic Cycling
Being up at the lake isn’t all about the water. I did get in a swim yesterday afternoon shortly after we arrived but soon after, I hit the road on my bike to ride through the wooded countryside of Sawyer County.
I made my way through the Chief River State Wildlife Management area enjoying the cool air of the forest wafting out onto the hot pavement as I rolled in and out of shade. I didn’t see a deer on the side of the road ahead of me but I suddenly heard the sound of branches and spotted the animal standing broadside and looking at me calmly through the foliage it had just stepped behind.
As I try to write this now I am constantly distracted by coverage of the time trial stage 20 of the Tour de France.
Such fun!
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Lotta Landscaping
Enough already with the driveway subject dominating my posts of late. I’m as ready to move on as anyone but there is a lot of work left to get the new driveway to the level of completion we seek. Bear with me for just a few more days. There will be a little break from this topic starting tomorrow. We are leaving this morning for the lake. I get to watch live coverage of the Tour de France for a few days! I can write about how great swimming is in that precious Round Lake water.
When we return home, our plan is to begin cleaning up the edges. It is going to be a big job but we are looking forward to it. Achieving that level of finish will be a very pleasing accomplishment. I know this because I have taken a couple of stabs at what it might involve.
Before:
Old folds of sod from when the original asphalt was dug up need to be picked up. The gravel will be raked up and shaped to cover the exposed edges of the new asphalt.
Here is a section where I did just that:
As we finish them, along the lengths of both sides, I will be visualizing what it will be like when I am trying to plow snow beyond the edge of the asphalt, which needs to happen to maintain a full drive-able width through the full winter season. It will be good to have the gravel base along the edges for that purpose.
A few days of lake life bliss will help us to be fresh and ready to go for a few days of landscaping next week. I’m looking forward to both.
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That’s Done
We are thrilled to have a new driveway and even more thrilled to be able to enjoy some peace and quiet today. While the paving crew was working on Tuesday, we needed to choreograph access for the regularly scheduled delivery of a pallet’s worth of 50lb bags of feed for the horses.
Yesterday, it was allowing access for the farrier to get in and trim the horse’s hooves. All this was achieved under a constant soundtrack of propane burners, diesel engines, and backup beepers. We ended up using a back route through a few gates and across the hay field to move some people and equipment in and out.
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Actually, we’ve decided to use the back route across the hay field from now on and not let any vehicles ever drive on the new asphalt. It looks too good to mess up with traffic driving on it. It’s like having a brand new car and freaking out over the possibility of the first scratch or dent happening.
It was very rewarding to see the new asphalt laid all the way to the road. Maybe the township will notice the road is beginning to look as bad as our old asphalt did and schedule repair/replacement sooner than later. I’m beginning to feel like a pavement snob.
Honestly, even though I’ve longed for this new driveway for years, I’m suddenly becoming aware that I now have to adjust my attitude from complete disdain and intentional neglect to actually caring for it. I shudder at the thought of rolling the big tires of the Ford New Holland diesel tractor over the pristine surface of asphalt on a warm, sunny day.
If a parked delivery truck has an oil leak, I’ll become distressed. Most of all, I’ll labor over deciding when a new seal coat is needed.
Ah, but that is not living in the moment. Today, I will focus on the present. The project of getting the old driveway fixed is done. Well, mostly done. We could only afford to have the asphalt applied. The landscaping of the edges remains for us to do.
I may dabble with picking up loose big rocks today, but most of all, I hope to allow time to enjoy the comparative quiet of having no big machines rumbling for the first time all week.
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Million Bucks
It was an asphalt ballet as workers seamlessly moved around obstacles and each other to wield their specialty tools or switch them out with another to work the hot material into the perfect final form.
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In the areas by the house and the shop/garage the new asphalt was overlaid on top of the old driveway surface. We were able to do that because the base in these sections had stood the test of time and not fallen apart like so much of the rest of the driveway. I had no idea how they would start the process and was duly impressed to see what they could achieve using just their hand tools.
The Bobcat would deliver a bucketful of loose hot asphalt and the crew then made quick work of shaping and packing the first edge with their “T” poles. The big machine would then move in and set up directly over what they started and slowly roll away leaving a perfect layer of pavement behind it.
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At every seam or corner edge, the guys wordlessly collaborated to fill gaps, shape edges, and perfect the finish of the surface. They all demonstrated an impressive attention to detail.
The garage gained a new piece of equipment.
Almost looks like it belongs, although I’m not sure I would be able to put it to good use beyond flattening all the mole hills and tunnels annoyingly prevalent everywhere we turn.
By the end of their workday, they stopped between the shop/garage and the turnout to the barn. Today, they won’t have to deal with any more corners. It’s just a straight shot to the road now. If all goes well, they should complete their work today.
Already, the portion they have completed has our place looking like a million bucks.
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Ever Closer
We got closer than ever to new asphalt yesterday. With great anticipation, starting right from the moment I first woke up, we awaited the arrival of heavy equipment. I drove Cyndie’s car down to the road first thing, just to have it available in case we have reason to go anywhere in the next few days.
Then I watched the hours tick by. It was about ten o’clock when I finally heard big trucks down on County Road N. Any lingering doubts I had about the timely continuation of this project were put to rest.
They unloaded machines from trailers and started moving them up the driveway. The first day would be all about preparation. Using a Bobcat skid steer tractor, the grading expert, Dan, was an artist of control as he worked to perfect the surface left by the excavating crew. They had left one small depression that he was able to quickly eliminate with the addition of another small load of gravel.
Dan said the curve in the driveway makes this job a little trickier because his Bobcat doesn’t have a blade that can be set at an angle. It just has a small bucket that he uses to grade the surface. Grading through the turn takes extra focus and attention to detail. In the high heat of a cloudless day, it would be much easier to just zone out and drive by muscle memory.
It felt great at the end of the day to see their compactors parked at the top of our driveway, ready for what comes next.
Today, it will be putting down new asphalt.
I’m feeling rather giddy to be this close.
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Missing Out
Now that we are back at home, I don’t have access to television coverage of the Tour de France bike race. I decided to focus on other projects yesterday and headed outside to move lawn furniture in preparation for mowing the grass that is overdue to be trimmed. The dew point temperature was high and the grass was very wet. I was going to need to wait for dryer conditions later in the day.
I decided to fill the time by cleaning up the two sections of asphalt that didn’t get removed by the excavators. Between the shop garage and the house, the old asphalt was still in good enough shape that they can overlay new on top of it. I spent much of the day pulling grass and weeds from the cracks and cutting back the sod away from the edges.
I also did a deep sweeping with a push broom to remove all debris.
While working on all that, thunderstorms started blossoming almost directly overhead. When it thundered nearby I pulled out my phone and checked the radar. Sure enough, the green/yellow/red blotches were materializing right on top of us.
Delilah and I headed back inside just as the intensity of pouring rain started to peak. The lawn was not going to dry out any time soon.
Being stuck indoors, I could have easily checked out the bike race online, but I didn’t even think of it. I finished reading the news and closed my eyes for a ten-minute nap. When I came to again the sun was shining bright. That allowed me to take Delilah out for her noon walk, where we stop by the barn to give Mix a little mid-day feed of extra nutrition.
The dog and I only made it part way through the woods when it started to rain again.
Back in the house we went. I ate lunch and waited until I could get back outside to finish putzing around the upper driveway.
It took until 2:00 in the afternoon for the weather to stabilize and the precipitation end. At the end of the day, around the time I was turning in for the night, I thought to check on the race. I missed out on several incidents with the Jumbo-Visma team, including the yellow jersey crashing.
I can just imagine the heightened alarm of commentators Phil Ligget and Bob Roll describing the drama as it unfolded.
At least I won’t miss anything today as it is a rest day for the competition. My attention will be on a certain paving company’s expected arrival and whether the grass is drying enough for me to mow.
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Better Base
We returned home from the lake yesterday and got our first look at the completion of work by the excavating company that removed the old asphalt from our driveway. More important than just removing the old surface, they improved the base for laying down new asphalt. The new rock they added included a layer of surprisingly large-sized rock.
The big rock layer is visible on the edge of the more typical gravel base that was applied above it. This is just the thing I was hoping for after seeing how the previous asphalt sagged and broke apart over time due to the insufficient base.
Since we already had loads of gravel being hauled to our property, we asked them to also add fresh rock to the unpaved loop that circles our hay shed. The gravel that was laid down to originally create that drivable loop had almost disappeared beneath green growth that sprouted over the years.
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We don’t mind that grass and weeds sprout through the gravel (although I don’t like mowing it because rocks and mower blades don’t get along well) but we want to assure the loop remains firm enough to support heavy vehicles in all weather conditions. An additional layer of rock is a way of addressing that concern.
If all goes according to plan, the asphalt company will show up tomorrow. Based on what they mentioned when the job was quoted, the hot weather forecast for the week will be ideal for best results. “The hotter, the better,” they said. I will not be complaining about the heat this week no matter how uncomfortable it may get.
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Matter
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that was a world away
worlds away
what matters now
changes
every day
simple as that
incrementally
decimals of familiarity
echo in our chambers
resonate
reverberate
in desperation
to matter
to someone
anyone
somehow
right now
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Lake Living
One of the special charms of being up at the lake is the communing with family and friends. Staying in the same place with folks for days at a time expands the connection so much more than just an afternoon visit to one another’s homes for occasional events. As great as it is to have the lake home filled with people and activity, that is exactly what we are enjoying not having this week.
It has been just Cyndie, me & Delilah up here this week and we have been loving it. There are a few people from other families up at their places, but they have mostly been keeping to themselves as much as we have to ourselves.
Yesterday was quieter than the day before (when there was some passing lightning and thunder that triggered Delilah into barking fits) and even the dog seemed to settle nicely into the chill lake-life atmosphere we were cultivating.
I got in a mellow bike ride on quiet roads through wooded marshes that had me curious about the level of bear activity that may have been happening lately. Something about the scenery just looked like there should be a bear ambling by at any minute. Thoughts like this are probably triggered by the one time I did spot a bear loping along in a field up here, just to my right as I pedaled along the road. When it finally noticed me rolling along it just altered course to slant away from parallel to me so that disappearing into the nearby trees happened sooner than later.
It was somewhat comical how nonchalant we both were about the brief sighting.
After my cycling and a whopping sandwich lunch, Cyndie and I took Delilah for some water sports and we all enjoyed being alone on the beach. Delilah doesn’t choose to swim but happily tromps in up to her belly. We all did a fair amount of rock hunting and a little bit of water splashing.
It was a luxuriously slow day with some card playing on the deck, a little Tour de France watching, a grilled chicken dinner, and some streaming suspenseful tv drama after dark.
I could get used to this life if it weren’t for our other life waiting for us to return to Wintervale.
Of course, living most of our days at home serve well to keep our visits to the lake up north all the more enticing.
The reality is that we are just temporarily “lake living.” We head back home tomorrow morning where I will quickly change gears and dive into cutting grass. I’m pretty sure I will do so with visions of the scene in the photo above playing in my mind all the while.
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Relative Something 