I just hate taking vacation days off work and working harder than if I'd gone to work! We have been working from 7AM until dark so I don't have much time to write. The yard is coming along fairly well.
Thursday was a backbreaking day as we actually got started on putting the railroad ties in place. The Wonderful Spouse did the final leveling of the 1st tier by hand and placed the first row of railroad ties in place. I got to drill two 3/4" holes in each tie and drive the spikes (re-bar) in place. The spikes were 16" long, and the ties are 7" thick; youcan do the mathe on how far I had to drive the spikes into the groundclay and rock. The first row of tiers went slowly since WS was very picky about them being level and straight (not a bad thing). The second and third rows went faster as we just made sure the front faces were fairly even. However, those railroad ties also got three spikes apiece in which we drilled holes through 2 ties in which to drive the 1/2" spikes. We traded off on drilling/spiking since the sledge hammer was getting awful heavy for me too handle by that time.
We got lucky since our neighbor across the street only worked a partial day and came over and helped up for a couple hours in the afternoon. This gave me a rest while I ran to the hardware store and bought another drill since the old drill was starting to crap out on us. Another friend came by about 7 PM and ran the machine until about 9:30 to bring in fill for the low side (the second side that needed a retaining wall). At that point, it was rake and level the fill, which WS did and I got to play rock girl for the fill that was being brought over.
Yesterday we started bright and early since the machine was to be picked that morning. WS used the bucket to fill in between the two tiers in front with loam (which a friend had dropped off Thursday afternoon). I raked it all in place - great fun since it was wet! After the machine was picked up, we decided we needed a break and ran into Concord for breakfast and other errands. When we got back, WS started working on filling in the second side with ties and I worked on building up the rock retaining wall around the driveway (another low spot in the yard.
We decided that it would be really nice to get another machine this weekend to finish up bringing in fill and spreading the rest of the load of loam. So, we called around and got someone to deliver a slightly smaller machine last night. We rejected one place because they wanted $200 to deliver the machine 30 miles - the place we went with delivered for $50, and the driver stayed late to make the delivery for us!
Today and tomorrow will be about the same; finish the railroad ties on the second side, build up the rock wall and spread fill/loam. It will be nice to get back to work!
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