On Road Construction-(3) Finishing Up

Spring #2.
After our spring thaw, I found I needed to scoop out and fill one more 20' section of road (big sigh). With last summers unpleasant memory of moving tons of rock almost out of my thoughts, I took another 20 buckets of slop (mud) out of a last wet spot. I was lucky to find a mother lode rock pile at the end of the stone wall I'd been harvesting, under a pile of charcoal that was a brush pile I'd burned this past winter. I had to negotiate half a dozen large boulders that I could barely move with my tractor. I can only imagine how the farmer that originally cleared this land must have managed these. I have taken most all the small rock and am left wondering what to do with the large boulders. Perhaps some sort of modern stonehenge to make folks think I've gone off the deep end? That might be fun!

The last hole was filled and a few more damp spots had one-man rock placed in them. I ordered two trucks (20+ yards) of small rock and carefully layered this on the remaining roadbed that was still just soil. The ground was still wet enough so that this layer of small rock quickly got driven into the top layer of soil which was my hope. The areas in which the rock was pressed in deepest got a second layer of small rock. I plan on leaving these areas as they are, filling with small rock if necessary, until summer 3. My goal is to make sure that the small rock is packed in well enough so that there will be a solid road base. Of course, freezing and thawing here can (and will probably) wreak havoc on my road but I'd like to think I have done a decent job and that my road will last a long time and require little yearly maintainance.

My last task on building our road was closest to the paved road. Beyond our driveway entrance and wet area that had been filled with rock and a culvert summer previous, there was a small hill and large, sharp bend in the road that went around the small hill. I felt that this bend was a pain to negotiate and decided to remove part of the small hill, fill in the approaching valley and thus remove most of the curve. The only potential obstacle was (can you guess?) rock. There were tops of boulders (or so I thought) peeking out from the grassy hill I wanted to remove. As my neighbor across the street wanted to pasture his horses in our field again this summer and he brought home heavy equipment from his workplace often, I figured I had an out if I ran into anything I couldn't handle with my tractor.

In order to fill in the valley approaching the small hill, I needed (of course) more large rock. This gave me the opportunity to cleanup quite a few miscellaneous rock that were on either side of the roadway leading to our creek. These had been left by a skidder clearing through a stone wall. The remaining large rock came from the mother-lode rock pile described above. The largest rocks were placed on the downhill side of the road. Once the outline of the road bed was in place, I could start to fill the uphill side of the roadbed with more rock and the downhill side with debris. The downhill side would ultimately be filled and graded as a gentle slope.

I first removed the layer of grass from the hill and placed the sod on the downhill side of the outlined roadbed. As I dug to remove the topsoil below the sod, I was pleased and surprised to find clean gravel (no rocks). This gravel was a mixture of coarse sand and tiny (1/4") crushed stone. I used this as a top layer for the most finished parts of my road. It was a wonderful find and looks great as a road topping! I'm not quite done but already I've removed about 3-4 truckloads (and saved myself about $500.). Most of the small hill has been removed and, as I suspected, there are a few large rocks I am unable to deal with. So, I will wait for my neighbor to come home one weekend with his excavator. My other option is to drill a series of holes in the rock and fill them with a material that expands when it dries (after it's mixed with water). I have yet to track down where to obtain this stuff; I do know it exists. Our ledge rock breaks (and drills) fairly easily so this seems like it might be a viable option if necessary. This last section of road is about 20 feet long. As of late spring 07, my roadbed is about 99% done.

I have trenched a drainage swale on the uphill side of this newest finished portion of road and used the soil to fill and grade the downhill slope. The uphill sod was removed first, packed in place (downhill) and then topped with the remaining soil from the excavated swale. The swale was raked and then seeded with a grass/clover mix and covered with burlap which is staked down. I've tried to use straw or hay but with our occasional windy days, it usually blows away. The grass gets a nice start under the burlap; then I remove the burlap so I can reuse it somewhere else. It will last me 2-3 seasons if I buy the heavier stuff. After a week without burlap, I will overseed if I need to. In spring, we usually get regular wet days so I don't have to worry about watering and the grass gets a good start.