Just another project at the land

[deadeye]

Actually this is a continuation from last year when we cut a wide pass through a stretch of woods between my shed and my cabin in preparation for building a new access road.  Today we started the road.  We are going to do the first half mile and the last half mile (the last half mile includes the area cleared last year).  Made great progress today as we got a good start on the last half mile.

Just getting started early this morning.


The little dot way back is the same PU as in the first picture.


Ran into farmer at the half mile mark.  Headline was tractor crashes into dozer.


Start of seconds half mile.  This needs a lot more work as it was never really a road.




Dozer put to bed for the day.

[Jerkbiat]

looking good!

[LPS]

Quite a project DE.  Very nice to have a nice road.

[dakids]

Very nice road.  I wonder if the road will help with the turkey hunting. 

[glenn57]

deadeyes putting that in so the bear have easier mobility!!!!!!!!!!! sorry deadeye!!!!! just had too!!!!!!!

[deadeye]

I mostly did the road to stimulate the economy.  We may have a guess the cost contest again.  They should be finishing up today.  There were 4 guys, two trucks with drivers, one track hoe with driver and one guy who went between the caterpillar and a skid loader.  They will have moved around 750 - 1000 yards of gravel/fill.  We did around a mile of road.

[LPS]

Was the gravel on your property DE or did you have to buy it?  Looks like pretty nice stuff.

[deadeye]

Good question LPS.  The gravel fill was not on my land but was nearby on a farmer friends land.  Actually the first loads could be dumped 1/2 mile from the "pit" (hole in hill).  Of course the last loads were much farther around 2.3 miles.  All but a quarter mile of the route was across fields.  If I had to buy the fill from the closest pit it would have more than tripled the cost.  And to answer part of your question, no I did not have to buy the fill as the farmer let me take it for free.  I thin I owe him one now. 

[LPS]

So the average is about 10 yards per load.  They may be loading a little more since they are right there by the pit.  But still appx 75 - 100 loads.  Very nice DE!

[deadeye]

One truck held around 11-12 yards and the other 16 yards.  Probably around 70,000 pounds loaded. 

This yellow truck held 10-11 yards


The first half mile we did was across high ground. Basically a road across a field.  Only muddy and rough all spring,
,when it rained and in fall. Being it's very dry now it held up very well to the three days of hauling. The same cannot
be said about the last half mile we did.  This was pretty much all new road through some lower areas and through
woods clearing (500 yards) we did last year.  I was really surprised a truck didn't get buried to the axels. 


Yes those are drag marks from the bottom of the truck.  I'm still amazed we didn't bury one in that area.
By the time we were done, they could drive over it. 


This truck hauled around 16-17 yards.

[Steve-o]

All that heavy equipment will scare the deer away.   

[Dotch]

Pretty snazzy deadeye. I bet the 1-35 protesters have it on their radar...

[deadeye]

Steve-o
Quite the opposite.  I think the deer actually enjoyed the entertainment.  Pretty much all day they would pop out to check on the progress or leave foot prints in the fresh dirt.  Last night while we were loading the equipment and BS'ing, two does came out about 50 yards away and inspected the work.  They watched us but showed no alarm.  Then a doe and fawn came out about 40 yards on the other side of us.  Like the others, this doe proceeded to inspect the job on her side while the fawn romped around and seemed to want to come over to say hi.  They only left when the diesel trucks started and drove towards them. It was a nice way end to the job.  The guys couldn't believe the deer were more curious than alarmed.  I told them they are my pets and to not run them over on the way out. 

[deadeye]

With all the things going on I forgot to post that the road is done.  It took a year to get it going but was completed in just 3 days.  Turns out the local kid who was going to do it, had too many other things to do (who knows, partying, working etc) and he contacted a friend who along with his friends dad to take over the project.  Of course it would have been nice had he told me.  This resulted in a few awkward conversations.  Like me asking who do I pay?, and his reply, "me I guess" and then I say, "well, I don't know you and never asked you to do anything here".  (silence).   This conversation took place the first day after they had started the road work.  I was a bit pissed at the kid who lined this up because he never said a word about this to me.  I had no idea how the guy would charge me or how much or for that matter, what he planned to do.  Not knowing what the kid setup, I didn't know if he was charging by the hour for each piece of equipment (2 trucks with drivers, track hoe with operator, skidder and caterpillar, one guy going between these two) or by the job.  There's a big difference if he charged a fixed price and then did a quick dump and run job.  We talked about this again the morning of the second day and he indicated the kid had ask him if he could do the road for $10,000 and he told him he could.  I still didn't tell him to continue or stop but decided to see how things progressed.  The first half mile was pretty easy as it was flat hard ground and they basically dumped a layer of fill over the ground.  By noon on the second day they were well into the last half mile which was a different animal all together.  Early afternoon I could see that he intended to do it the right way and went beyond what I expected.  Some places got well over a foot of fill and he agreed to a do a couple places not mentioned before hand.  I told him I was impressed and happy with what he was doing and would pay him the full $10,000.  Of course this could backfire because he could now rush to finish as he would get paid regardless of what he did.  I think it worked in my favor as he seemed now proceeded to do even more than I expected.  At the end of the second day they had reached my cabin and the road didn't look too too bad.  Now he spent almost all of day three adding another layer of fill over the last half mile (this was the new road across a field, through a low area and through the clearing we made last year.

[Dotch]

  Can BLM be far behind? 

[LPS]

Darn nice road DE. 

[HD]

They using just class 5?
I'm getting a couple loads of milled asphalt for our drive. They told me it was $435.00 a load.

[LPS]

That stuff make a nice driveway.

[Jerkbiat]

Looks awesome DE! Glad that the new guy worked out for you without being notified. Back in 2002 after we had most of our hunting woods logged we asked the local store owner who would be a good person to hire to do some cat work to clear stumps so we could have some feilds made. So I contacted the person he recommended and be said sure. He had a big D8 cat bulldozer. So I went up there and met with one of his guys and showed what we wanted done. All good. I said we wanted to spend between a $1000-$1500. They thought that was doable. So the next morning we wake up to pouring rain. Ended up getting like 7" plus inches. Roseau had big flood. Think Warroad did too. We didn't live up here at the time. Well most the summer goes by and around the end of August I get a phone call from a different guy that was hired to do the work without our knowledge. He doesn't have a dozer. He has an excavator and is plucking stumps one by one. Tells me there is no way he can do all we wanted for the price we had agreed on. Needless to say it became a sh#&$t show. Threatened us with a lean if we didn't pay. I kept saying get your money from the guy that hired you. I didn't hire you. In the end I finally told to guy I hired to go clean up the mess of stumps and I will pay the other guy. Needless to say the next year we found someone else. A much better person.

[LPS]

Puzzling how people can't connect the dots of how to conduct business!

[deadeye]

Jerkbait,
This seems to be a common practice in the country.  You deal with one guy and show him what you want done and discuss costs and then when it finally gets done someone else did it.   
Yes, for me it worked out just fine but I should have been told who was doing it and what I could expect to be done for what cost.  I could have refused to pay him and his only recourse would be to put a lien on the property. He would have to do this every year as you can only put a lien on property for one year at a time.  And, (this is a big and), he would only be able collect If and when I sold the property.  I'd say he took a bit of a chance doing the job without talking to me.  Good thing for him I'm an honest person and was not out to take advantage of anyone.   

[LPS]

I can't believe these guys would even think to have someone else do the job and that the new guy wouldn't want to talk to the original client.

[Jerkbiat]

That is exactly the point. That and I hired a guy with a big dozer and then the guy he hires uses an excavator and burns thru the money. Had they notified me first I would have told him no.