Posts Tagged ‘working together’
Days Long
Once again, we find ourselves engaged in a project that is much larger than two people can complete in a short amount of time. Cyndie and I could work on the newly graded dirt along our driveway from sun up to sun down if our sore feet and blistering hands were equal to the task and it would still take many days.
Since the project isn’t truly completed until there is grass growing in all this new clay/dirt combination, it will be months if not a year to reach the ultimate goal. Luckily, getting beyond this first raking and grading effort will be a welcome milestone. We’ll no longer feel driven to work intensively at every possible moment.
As always, it is a labor of love. It looks so much better already and will be a great improvement for mowing and plowing along the driveway. I’m looking forward to doing both on the improved slopes.
To accommodate allowing Asher to loiter off-leash, Cyndie and I split up and she stayed with him to work out-of-sight from the road and I took a second wheelbarrow down to the road to rake, shovel, and scrape.
Removing the large chunks of clay and the occasional big rocks leaves the task of heavy raking to pull dirt up from the bottom and smooth out the slope as evenly as possible. I find the result highly visually rewarding.
It actually inspires me to want to get right back out there to pick up where I left off except for the one-sided toll it takes on my body. I can’t master the art of raking left-handed. Hours of pulling only one way creates a stress on my body that is decidedly lopsided.
Maybe I’ll do some mowing today on the zero-turn mower. I need to steer that with both hands equally.
It’s another labor of love, don’t you know.
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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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Relative Something 