Gravel

I’m 76 years old and Rosalie is determined to get every last ounce of work out of me before I fall off my twig. Her family is coming. She looked at our lot and said how untidy it looked. I, like a fool, agreed with her. Now I have to maneuver twelve yards of gravel around for the next few weeks.

I went around to the local quarry, ordered the stuff and asked when we would get delivery. I was hoping for a few weeks, but no, delivery would be the next day. I’m not going to win with this one. The truck showed up on time and dumped the stuff exactly where I wanted it and the work began. But first Rosalie had to have a photo op, to pretend that she was working.

Of course, everything has to be moved around in the yard. This may not be a bad thing as it does need tidying somewhat. The next problem is, where do I start, front or back. I had to wait for Rosalie’s instructions on that one. She wasn’t here at the time, she was looking for her safety books and her hard hat that says “Foreman.”

As it turned out, Rosalie was a great help. I thought I would have to find her lighter chores to do while I did the heavy shovelling. But she grabbed a shovel and taking small scoops along with a little help from me, filled the cart with a good load. All I had to do was haul it to where it had to be dumped and rake it level.

Dave across the road from us must have felt sorry for us as he offered to redistribute the pile with the campground tractor. Oh boy! Did that save us a lot of work. But, we still had a lot to do. A lot of the places he dumped the gravel left a small hump once we raked it over, so we now have to keep raking to get it mostly level. From what I see, it will take a few months for it to not only get level but also to settle. It consists of a lot of small pieces and dust which when settled locks very solidly.

It has cleaned up the yard a lot, but as I said, it will take a while for the whole thing to look that much better.

More to follow.