The New Driveway… Phase 1

I finally bought the sawmill I wanted in the spring of 2021. The sawmill is built on a trailer so it can be moved around. I also need to buy a tag along trailer to move my tractors so they can travel with the mill. The problem is the driveway at my house. It is fairly steep in the beginning and has a sweeping bend. Low slung trailers were not going to be easy to back up. The corner off the Lane is tight and I was fairly sure the trailers would bottom out on the steep section. It was easy to imagine bent license plates, broken tail lights and gouged hot top. This was going to be an ongoing problem that needed to be resolved. The solution was fairly straight forward, cut in another driveway that would tie into the existing one and create a loop. Then the trailers would not need to be backed up the old driveway.

Long before the four houses on the Lane were built; there was a cabin on my land dating back to the 1930’s or 40’s. You could see the outline of the foundation in my front yard. It was the only home on the Lane at that time. It’s fairly easy to see, based on some old stone walls, where the original driveway to the cabin was. My plan was to reopen the old driveway and loop it around into the new one. I also wanted to dig out the lower section of my yard where the old cabin had been. This is a shady part of the yard, is often wet and the grass is not great. I planned to dig out the loam, grass and moss and lay down gravel. Then I could build a garage for the sawmill and there would still be enough space left to set up and run the sawmill and store logs.

This is where Gene Hennessy comes in. Gene is a good friend and a firefighter on my fire department. He owns several businesses all related to construction and building. He owns things like excavators, dump trucks and skid steers. He was willing to take this on in his spare time, treat me well and get it done. Perfect!

And so we began the driveway build. If there ever was a project that would roll out with many, many changes along the way, this was the one. I often make changes to building projects along the way; you see things differently as you build. Both Gene and I saw lots of possibilities as we went; being flexible we changed course often. The results speak for themselves. The driveway is not quite done; now it’s winter, we will finish in the spring. But, it is looking far nicer than I originally imagined.

We started in August of 2021and chipped away at this when we had time. First we needed to move many logs from the previous winter’s tree cutting. I had brought a tree service in, one with a substantial crane. They had loosely piled the logs where the new drive would come in. My new much larger tractor with a log grapple was yet to arrive so we used Gene’s skid steer and mini-excavator to move and pile the logs. To put things in perspective, the log in the first picture is 30” in diameter and weighs 4600lbs. I know this is an accurate number because the crane that lifted it off its stump weighed the trunk with its onboard scale.

First we Moved a Lot of Logs… Some Quite Large

We did our best to pile up the logs as neatly as possible and compacted into the smallest possible space. We both kept looking at the huge triple oak stump that was in the middle of everything. We hadn’t cut the drive across the yard yet, but knew the stump would be inside of it and would be constantly in the way going forward. To make matters worse there was a large ominous looking boulder sticking out of the ground right up against the stump that pretty much had to be sitting on the root mass. Gene’s full sized excavator would be the right machine for the job but we couldn’t get it on site without chewing up the hot top on the Lane. There was a lot of discussion about whether we could or couldn’t get the stump out with the mini-excavator and skid steer.

Compacting the Logs into a Pile… note the Large Stump to the Right

It took a lot of work to move all the logs out of the way. We ended up with three separate piles. I think we spent about a half day doing it. The plan was to cut the loam out right up to the piles and put down the gravel. I would cut up the logs in the spring and use my bigger tractor to dig the loam from where they had been and spread more gravel.

Moving the Logs Took Half a Day

With the logs done for the moment, Gene made the first rough pass of the drive from the Lane up into my yard. There were trees on the new driveway but none were very large. We did some cutting but mostly Gene pushed them over and out of the way. This part went quickly but made a mess. I cut up the pushed over trees when I had time and when my new tractor arrived I started moving them up behind the house to be cut and split into firewood.

The Mini-excavator Making the First Cut

August turned into September and September into October. Part time projects have a way of stretching out into longer and longer periods of time. Truckloads of gravel and crushed stone were delivered and spread out. We used a gravel product known as “reclaim” which contains ground up recycled asphalt. In the warmer weather it will heat up and seal into an excellent surface. I may rent a vibratory roller on a hot day to really compact it. This is a great way to get a smooth durable surface at a fraction of the cost of asphalt. I wasn’t really interested in asphalt anyway; I far prefer the look of gravel.

The First Rough Cut… Looking up from the Lane

Now came the stump. After much discussion a decision was made to try to get the stump out with the mini and the skid steer. There was no question that it should be removed. The question was could we remove it?

The Stump and Boulder in the Middle of it All Needs to Go

The true size of the boulder was revealed after we dug all the way around it. It was a spherical pancake roughly 6’ in diameter by 3’ deep. If you do the math, it weighs something like 14k pounds. So there was no way the boulder was coming out of the hole. The best we could hope for was to get the boulder off the root mass and pull the stump. Then we could dig deeper and bury the boulder in the hole. Gene dug a good sized pocket behind the boulder with the mini. We managed to push the boulder off the roots with the skid steer and have it stand on edge in the pocket.

After a Lot of Digging We were Ready to Push the Boulder off the Stump Roots

The digging continued. Gene used the mini to cut all the way around the stump. He tore out roots as he went. The hole was getting bigger and bigger. We had a pretty good sized spoil pile as well.

More Digging to get at the Stump Itself

After several unsuccessful attempts to break the stump out, followed by more digging, we got to where we needed to be. Gene was able to push the stump over with the skid steer. This was followed by multiple attempts to get the stump out of the hole. Apparently the stump was heavier than we thought and needed the mini and skid steer to get it out of the hole. Even when it was out of the hole we could not lift it with either machine. We settled on pushing it down the driveway and onto the corner where it still sits. Welcome to One Stump Farm! The plan is to let it dry out some over the winter, knock some of the dirt out of the root ball and try to get it on a trailer and haul it away next spring.

Finally Breaking the Stump Out

With the stump out of the hole it was a matter of digging deeper and rolling the boulder over and into the deepest part of the hole. We filled in the hole, compacted the fill and spread gravel over it. It probably took two or three hours to get the stump out and bury the boulder. The end result was terrific… more work space and a clean looking site.

My Truck Parked where the Stump Used to Be

I moved the loam pile (shown in the picture behind my pickup) with one of my tractors into the woods behind the house. It’s not screened but still seven or eight yards of loam. I’ve already used a couple yards for other projects. Waste not, want not… we do not remove or throw away much around here. As we moved towards December; there were a few hours here and there of spreading more gravel and getting things leveled up. I moved all the logs two more times. Once to get them out of the way so we could finish the gravel work where they were stacked. Then I put them back where they had been on top of the new gravel.

The project is nearly done, maybe one more load of gravel and some more stone to trim out the edges of the space. In the spring I will put up some split rail fencing along the driveway coming up from the Lane and along the top of the embankment next to where the new garage will go. That will give the project a nice finished look. I have some grass to seed along the driveway cut and next to work area… both were unavoidable collateral damage during this project.

Many thanks to Gene for his help and assistance with this. I never could have done it without his expertise, generosity and equipment. He has been a good friend for a long time and this is just one more example of his kindness.

Done for 2021 We Will Finish up Next Spring