torquill | We did it before the rains came this year (Reply)

We patched the driveway today -- four pickup loads, two cubic yards of gravel total. The bed unloader my dad got (essentially a big woven-metal sheet and a winch) really did work well for that; most of the time it was spot-dump sort of stuff, but the last thing we did was to lay down a smooth sheet of gravel to keep the mud down in the circle. It looked almost perfectly smooth, from him slowly easing the truck forward and me cranking steadily.

Mental note: such operations are much easier when the truck is an automatic. The clutch on that machine is... temperamental.

I had noted the weather forecast today, and asked my dad whether we should be doing this Thursday, after things cool down. He said no, it wouldn't be a lot of effort. Of course, he was the one in the truck getting the gravel, while I was raking things smooth... after two loads I was ready to fall down with heat prostration, so I left the third where it was, we dumped the fourth as best we could, and I rested for a few hours. It's done now, and the shower I took afterward was sheer bliss (until I dried off with a towel which was noticeably warmer than my nice, cool shower water. Bleah.)

We're ready for the rain, now, and my car actually sits level with the ground now that the 8" deep wheel ruts are gone.

Anyway... I'm across the bay with