Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Driveway blues....

We got the blues baby, and we got a big job ahead too....yahoo, yippee, yahoo.... Oh, sing me the blues baby! *laugh*


The next huge "project" begins as we dig, scrap and lay bricks in rows on large wooden pallets (we need you Stephen and Katarina for more pallets!).

Our driveway is comprised of crushed rock (not enough) from the road to the "T" shape at the top. The former owners gathered various paving and interlocking bricks they scrounged for free from jobsites, and together with their children to proceed with a huge group effort to lay down a driveway together, up to the garage doors. It doesn't appear as though the job was done properly, as it had no foundational rock, sand or other, and a section around the garage doors differs greatly from the rest. It looks silly there. As well, the contractor informed us that he had warned them to wait until after the frost that year, for it would heave up. Plus, it wasn't layed right at all as you can see in the photos.


Each day when we drive up the bricks, it's as though we are on a carnival ride. Wheeeeeee....up and down the bumps up to the garage.

Our project? Lift the bricks, all thousand something of them, flatten and rebuild the driveway form with extra soil, have a partial concrete drive near the garage doors and much more crushed rock for the rest.

Is this necessary? I didn't think so at first. I loved the quaint, country home look it enhanced the house with, however given a wet rainy day, when we step on the bricks, it's similar to watching a clam spit up through the ocean's sand along a beach, but instead,we attemp to dodge the spitting mud shooting up from the cracks on our clothing. Poor hubby gets small mud spots over the bottoms of his pant legs and has to endure a professional work day in them afterwards. Plus, if we don't fix the poor installation and bumpy lumps now, we'll have more problems in the winter ahead.

What a job though! Four pallets are full at this moment, and in the picture below, this is the only area empty of bricks so far...


Who's doing the work at this moment? Well, I have four happy campers who have work with remunerations attached. They're doing a great job too. Now to sell the pallets filled with hundreds of those bricks!

But don't worry...I've saved some to make a winding path from the house to our small barn, up on the block next.