Ramble On

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Saturday Chores

This Saturday is shaping up to be a busy one at Hawksbill Cabin. Mickey is coming by to talk some more about repairing the driveway - he made a stop by a few days ago to check things out for us.

I posted on this project last month - at the time, we didn't know that he had already come out and done some grading, and he'd put down a layer of gravel - just in time for the big snowfall. I have a couple of photos here with the post showing where the new gravel shows through the scraped patches.


The erosion seems to come off of the hill, where the run off gets diverted down the drive instead of continuing on down to our culvert. This was caused by an uphill construction and grading project a couple of years ago before we moved in, and no one is stepping up to help with fixing it. The road back there is private, and the other owners are responsible for its maintenance. My expectations are that funding for correcting this problem will be scarce.

So enter Mickey, who we've been working with for a while to come up with a solution. The first step was to stabilize the drive, which is done. We are going to recycle some old railroad ties leftover from an earlier project to make a berm that will send the water to a wooded hillside, which we expect will slow the flow, and hopefully allow some to percolate into the soil whether than continuing as storm runoff down to Beaver Run.

After we plan the project, I am going on a beef run over to Trio Farms for some steaks. I'll call for an appointment on Saturday once I have a time frame for the meeting with Mickey. I have in mind to pick up some New York strips, some Delmonicos (you might call them Ribeyes) and some chuck steaks. Probably enough to give us a good beef meal once a week through the winter. Looking forward to that.
We also got our estimate on the new chimney flashing and ice breakers for the roof from Alan. We've given the go ahead for those. Also, I'll have the chance to check on the gutter repairs that we done in the meantime. Even though we aren't getting out as much just now, seems like we've been able to hold down the fort on these projects.

2 comments:

steve said...

Hello,
I was surfing the net for sustainable shenandoah and I came upon pictures of a familiar house.
I do not know if we have met, but I have some pictures of your house that I took about five years ago when I was looking for property in the area. It is still my favorite house that I never bought. I am part of thhe sustainable group.(steven _)
bostdc@gmail.com
540-915-6313
Now I have to go and find those pictures.

Unknown said...

Steve,

Great to hear from you. I would be very interested in hearing your take on the house. We bought it from the guy who bought it at the time you were looking at it.

More separately by email -

Jim