Let there be driveway

And on the 8th day God said “Let there be driveway”, or something like that. The other half of the wrap around driveway was way overgrown when we bought the property. We had a tree guy get started clearing out this half of the driveway as well as trimming a bunch of overgrown trees around the property. He was also supposed to clear out the overgrowth by the lake. Well, there was a lot he was supposed to do, but didn’t. One thing he did have in abundance was excuses. “My trailer lost an axle…my buddy has a clamp truck and will be by to pick it up everything tomorrow…..the clamp truck got a busted hydraulic line…..I got a new smaller trailer…that trailer lost an axle….I just got out of lock up, I didn’t know my buddies were riding dirty when we got pulled over….”

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Needless to say, there was still a lot of tree work left to be done. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the tree guy hadn’t cut a bunch of brush and left it in a massive heap. But he did. And it needed cleaned up. So I got out the DR Horton wood chipper and got after it. Don’t forget, I’m all jacked up on cowboy coffee again! Yeeeeeehhhaaaawwwww! After topping off the gas and bar and chain oil in the chainsaw, I went to put the cap back on the bar oil and the cap broke. Dang. Guess I’ll use the machete.

I started on the back end of the brush pile and worked my way down towards the street chipping up everything that would fit down the feed chute of the chipper. This chipper is a hoss. I made a parts run at lunch to get a new oil cap for the chainsaw and I was back in business. Now I was able to cut up the bigger stuff and clear out much of the bigger branches that I didn’t dare cut up with the machete. By the end of the day I got to within 15 feet of the road and had made 3 large piles of wood chips.

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The weather was cold overnight (40s) which made for some fog coming off of the lake in the morning. Very picturesque. The views at this place are just amazing.

Sunday morning I got started with the quiet work early on to try and not disturb the neighbors. There was a wheelbarrow that was left in the shop that looked to be in rough shape. I aired up the tire and it held, so I went ahead and gave the whole thing a tune up. It rolled like new when I was done. I used it to distribute the mulch to create planter beds throughout the yard. Later on, a neighbor informed me that probably wasn’t a great idea as the trees that were mulched were mostly the highly invasive Brazilian Pepper trees and the mulch was likely full of seeds from them. Doh! Oh well, it’s done now. After that, I topped off the gas and bar oil in the chainsaw and the fill cap on the gas tank broke. Dang. Another machete day I guess.

The last 15′ up to the road was real bad. It appears this had been the previous owners brush pile where they piled on sticks and other stuff over the last decade. Much of it had decomposed and now there were big roots growing through it so you can’t just shovel it up. I got the rest of the brush pile chipped up at the road and then fought the roots/soil/decomposing branch pile that engulfed the end of the driveway. I got about half of the end of the driveway opened before calling it good enough. Time was running short and I still had to drive home. I got out the leaf blower and cleared everything off. It is starting to look good!

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There’s still more tree work to do but that’s all for this weekend. I’m looking forward to clearing out the rest of the overgrowth down at the lake which will provide even more of a lake view from the house. Check out the gar I found hiding in the weeds near the edge of the lake.

For kicks, I took a look at Google street view for the property. Their most recent image was from 2008. All of the trees, especially the banyan tree, are so much smaller. There’s also grass in the front yard so now I know grass is able to grow there. It’s currently all sand. Also, on the right side of the house, you can see what looks like two live oak trees. These trees died and fell over in a storm which is part of the reason for the hole in the side yard by the old septic tank.

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