Heavy lifting

But not on my part... no siree, those days are gone. I even mow the yard sitting down.

No, this is the story of the driveway replacement... aging concrete, but also with a three- or four-inch rise in one of the slabs, brought on by a tree root. Oh it also cracked the slab north-to-south entirely

We hired a snowplow once, I can't remember why, and the pickup truck bounced when the blade hit the outcrop. A major impediment.

And since we didn't quite exhaust our life savings traveling to Italy, we engaged a local concrete business to freshen up the joint.

The first step, of course, is to remove the step (and front sidewalk). Here's the view of our front door:

 

"Able" is the concrete company, not a challenge as in "are you able to leap from the porch to the dirt, or more to the point, from the dirt to the porch?"

Backing slowly away from that breathtaking view, we see the front sidewalk, or rather the lack thereof, with Linda's car parked at Bruce and Trish's:

 

I'd be remiss if I didn't regale you, the viewer, with the panoramic delight of the whole dang driveway in removed mode. Ah, dirt:

 

But our dirt wasn't the right dirt. I understand there are various grades of aggregate, and ours was a failing grade. So we needed more dirt (a recurring theme in this blog entry):

 

Naturally, we were anxious to get everything dumped and smoothed and compacted (yes, there is a tool for that and my inner Tim the Tool Man wants one, but Linda wonders for what, and sadly, as usual, she's right).

At last, the big day arrived, and we got our first delivery... that's a little cart at the middle-bottom of the driveway which transports the cement from the truck to the site of the pour:

First they poured from the front door to the driveway which included the front step, then they did the north side of the driveway. That little extra jag of no sod halfway down the right side of the driveway is where the basketball backboard used to reside:

 

Here they are with the delivery cart about to start the north side pour. Enzo finds the suprervisory role more taxing (or perhaps more boring) than he anticipated;

He did appreciate the move indoors, to the garage, so he could have less ambient heat but could still perform his duties:

 

Once the crew was finished and I was able (sorry, had to bring it in), I got to work with a rake, dirt, seed, and sticky straw (so they say, we'll see). Here's the north side finished:

 

Next up, south side... I got the bottom (beyond the sidewalk) dirted, seeded, and strawed, and then started with dirt again on the house side of the driveway:

 

Naturally, I ran out of dirt. So I had to run out for dirt. Linda and I estimated three bags, so I bought four to finish this phase. It took two and a half:

 

Side note: getting the dirt was last act of that full day of effort. The next day was to be a cake walk, throwing down the new dirt, then seed, then straw. I worked from 8 to 10 am, and then came in for a nap. 

It turned out the previous day took a toll on me. Who knew?
 

Which brings us, though, to Opening Day, today, July 8 of 2025, after seven days of no driving on the driveway (thanks to great neighbors who let us park in their driveways... four neighbors in all, Bruce and Trish and Steve and Jenny... so yes, it does take a village): 

 From the north, looking south. Another project, done.