More than a traveling road...

A Road Less Travelled...

When I read Pathfinders by Gail Sheedy back in the mid-1970s and decided to forge my own path in life, I had no idea that it would entail building a road from scratch in years to come. That day came this week...

In order to get access to the farm property, we needed to create an entrance since the land wasn't accessible directly from the existing county road. We started by clearing volunteer trees and brush from what was supposed to be a road and driving over it many times to 'make' a road. However, when it rained, the road became muddy and threatened to get us stuck on more than one occasion. We knew we'd need to build a road to provide easy access to the property.

Hmmm... what type of gravel to order? How many dump truck loads will it take to build the type of road we want? Where to go to get the best service and the best price? All questions we had to figure out beforehand. When we ordered the first load of 'gravel' to create a driveway over the culverts, they delivered road gravel, which was really thick sand... not exactly what we wanted. Lesson: What we mean by gravel and what the company means can be two different things. So then we learned there is AB gravel, road gravel, 1 1/2" gravel, etc., etc.. That didn't necessarily make it easier, but at least we knew we didn't want road gravel, because the sand caused us to get stuck more than once.

The first two loads delivered were AB gravel. Clearly, better than the sand and we can spread it over the sand driveway to give it more substance and into the parking area on the property.

The next two loads were to be the inch and a half size gravel. The driver showed up with a nice heaping load of gravel. It took me back to the days when my father used to work for the Huron County Road Commission. He had all sorts of road work stories to share at the dinner table. 

The driver was to back into the entrance, lift the dump mechanism, and slowly drive out to pour a layer of gravel over as much of the drive as was available.

Watching him work... I became a five-year old spectator again...

The driver did a nice job of pouring the gravel evenly along the road...

With the next load of one and half inch gravel, the driver shaped a triangular entrance to provide a wider area in which to come on the road. Then he dumped the excess onto the AB gravel piles so we have some extra to mix into that batch for the driveway entrance.

Assessing the job from the entrance side of the road, it looked like a job well done... We just have to drive over it for the next several months to pat it down. Yesterday when I walked on the new gravel road, I noticed that it was already settling in nicely and becoming very firm to walk on.

Ahhh....becoming a pathfinder has its own rewards... part of it is letting my core being be seen by the world, rather than just playing a part as an actor in someone else's play. The mysteries of the soul are intertwined with the mysteries hidden in the heart. I'm bringing those out into the open now... and it feels right... and good.

: ) Be happy and be at peace.