New Driveway and Polebarn

[rswyan]

Looking ENE, starting to strip the topsoil. John did this with his TN70D and boxblade which is 8' or 10' wide. Needless to say it was probably going alot faster than it would have with the B2910 and my 5' boxblade.

 

[rswyan]

While stripping the topsoil John ran into this monster boulder and dug it out with the grapple. It's probably 4' x 3' x 3' ..... I don't think he could lift it with his tractor.

 

[rswyan]

Getting ready to probe for more rocks in the hole that the big one came out of.

 

[rswyan]

While John was digging for rocks I was doing a little digging of my own- here's the B2910 waiting for me to finish digging yet another stump.

 

[rswyan]

Another rock surrenders to the grapple.

 

[rswyan]

Looks like he found a couple more.

 

[rswyan]

Another angle.

 

[rswyan]

Scooping up a load for the growing rock pile.

 

[rswyan]

A little shake to sift out the dirt.

 

[rswyan]

This is my secret weapon - my neighbor, Jeff's, grandson, Zack. He's eleven .... and extremely hardworking and very responsible. There have been very few kids his age that I have seen that exhibit his work ethic. He's always eager to lend a hand and help out (just to do it more than anything I think) He can run a 743 Bobcat and make it look like child's play (which to him I suppose it is) He also can run the 'hoe on Jeff's JD 310 TLB. Last night, while I was spreading crusher run, he was down here on his quad and suddenly says "I have to run home and get something" about ten minutes later he comes back with a 3' roller hooked to the back of his quad. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[rswyan]

Looking SSE. Alot more topsoil has been removed and moved over to Jeff's place (probably 20 loads in his son Stacy's 1-ton dump) - but there is still a really, really big pile of it - and we aren't all done stripping it off the site. And although I chipped brush several times a few more piles of it have appeared at the perimeter of the pad.

 

[rswyan]

Looking almost due East. Wood chip pile is on the left.

 

[rswyan]

Last year I started to remove and relocate the old driveway to a new location. The attached pic shows why I needed to - the asphalt driveway never really had a proper base installed under it. When our local refuse company got bought out a couple of years ago by a bigger concern they started running a large compactor truck down the drive to pick up the trash - rather than the pickup truck with an insert like they had done previously. This was the result - but then the driveway wasn't in the greatest shape to begin with.

 

[rswyan]

The location of the new driveway will be on the far side of the old shed in the attached image. It will come down along the tree line and then fork near the bottom of the image, with the west leg going to the house and the east leg going to the new polebarn.

 

[rswyan]

This is a picture of where the new drive will pass the old shed.

 

[rswyan]

Stripping out the topsoil for the new section of road.

 

[rswyan]

Almost had it done but then it rained .... have a bit of a drainage problem that needs to be addressed.

 

[rswyan]

Now that it's dried up a little the old and the new can be joined together.

 

[rswyan]

Since the field above the new section of road drains south (across the road) I needed to do something to make sure all the water from that drainage was going to be percolating under the new road. So I decided to put in some french drain.

 

[rswyan]

This the catchbasin that the french drains hook into.