Thursday January 16, 2025 Guerneville CA.
Forest road work
I had another section of the old dirt road to prep, so I headed on up into the forest around noon today, going through the state park which is just up the road from my place. I stopped at the entrance a moment to shoot the bull with the guy in there for a bit, then continued on up through the big redwood trees in the park. It was a bit chilly in the big trees today.
I let myself through the locked gate that led to the old dirt road and stopped along the road in several spots to check stuff out for the prep work I was going to do, especially noting where the water springs were along the road as I would have to pay special attention to them to make sure they crossed the road without messing up the road too much. I spotted two of them. I decided one of them I’d make a ditch to cross the road and the other one, was smaller, and decided to just cover it over with dirt, which might prove to be a mistake later when it rains hard. I’ll just deal with that if that proves to be a problem. Rock works good to fix stuff like that.
Stopping to check stuff out on the way up the road.
Bulldozer
My little bulldozer was waiting for me to warm it up, but first I had to check the transmission fluid as it has a slow leak. It had enough oil for the days work, so I was good to go and I turned the key and it started right up and purred real nice.
Once warmed up, I drove it down the road and started my prep work for the rock I’ll add at a later date.
Mud slide
Right off the bat, I came to the mud slide that slid about a month ago during the rain storms. It proved to be a little too muddy to work, so I just moved some of it to get by it without any difficulty. I’ll wait unit the rest of it dries out before spreading it out on the road. The mud slide is up to the right there.
Then I made a way for the first spring to cross over the road, instead of going down it and causing ruts in the road. This is the spring coming out of the hill to the right of my rig, just below the mud slide.
The water is running down the road and making it a muddy mess.
Road prep
I worked the rest of the day, out-sloping the road for water drainage during big rain storms. I worked on prepping this part of the road for rock. Mostly smoothing it out and fixing the drainage ditches.
Getting late
I was making good progress when I noticed it was almost five, so stopped there and I’ll do the rest, and last part next time.
It was rather cool when I went through the big trees in the park on the way home.
When I got home, I found two trucks parked in my yard. Some tree trimming guys were dumping woodchips in my garden area which was good.
Tom was shooting the bull with one of the guys and the other guy was under the truck fixing something that had broken. They live back in the hills, near where I’m working on the old dirt road.
This was the first time these guys were here. I told them to bring lots more woodchips as they are good for the garden and the chickens love scratching through them.
Nice day.
