Driveway Wars, Continued

Today I'll post the second edition of the continuing saga of Hibner Reno Week.

I thought yesterday was long and hard but it was a cakewalk compared to today.  We started this morning with lots of work to do to transform our very rough surface to something akin to what a driveway should look like.

And we began planning out the sidewalks which we knew were going to take a lot of time and effort.  It just wasn't an area where the Bobcat could help us out and the amount of roots and concrete that had to be removed was epic.  Even when the digging was fairly clear of those obstacles, we were digging 40-year-old sod and clay - heavy and difficult!
I did, however, dig out these peonies and transfer them to a holding area in the backyard.

While a neighbor we hired to help out and I dug and dug and dug, Dave continued to smooth the driveway.

Adding stone to make the unstable clay incredibly stable was a never ending job.

And so was compacting the materials.

Here Dave and Duke start setting the forms while the sidewalk excavation continues.

 And here was the first of two additional stone deliveries.

 Then, all of a sudden, the driveway began to look like a driveway!

 Of course the measuring and leveling was endless.

And all too soon it was time to say goodbye to Bobcat.  What a good helper he was!

 When Duke had to leave to do some farming, his brother came by and was an incredible help!  Here, he's starting the sidewalk forms but that was after he and Dave had expended more energy than most people have in a lifetime excavating the surface.

And here's the East sidewalk.  All it needs is a few more stones and the forms installed and it will be good to go.  Unfortunately, we'll be calling first thing in the morning for another load of stones.

And here's where we're at right now.  More forms to set tomorrow, more stones for the sidewalk base layer, and more compacting, measuring, and leveling. 

It didn't rain today which is good but we didn't pour either which is bad.  We're about 24 hours behind schedule but I did learn one thing. We got several estimates on having the driveway installed professionally but the prices were so high, we couldn't even consider them and now I understand why. What an incredible amount of work!!!!  What I don't know is where Dave finds the strength and energy to keep going hour after hour.

Oh and we're hoping that the Refuse Department comes by tomorrow and picks up our ever-growing mountain of debris.