driveway job this weekend

that is some deep black soil, and i think it will be a bit soft every frost season. Those pictures are from a few weeks ago and still quite wet IMO. He'll put that 3" minus rock on it and it will eventually heal up. Digging through it is a no-go, then you get to the really soft tan clay!! By the time you got to the bigger rock you'd have a really long basement excavation, not a road

Got it. Surge rock will go a long way in making an improved surface even on the softest soils.

It is frosty enough that the county shuts down trucks on the gravel roads for a couple of months after the first thaw. They just opened them up about the time that was dozed in, so that's your reference for how tender it is.

The same guy mass exed out the building site with the 315. I came back Monday afternoon to dig footings in there with a case rental 37. It was 108 as I drove up on the hill on Monday. We just made a battle plan and a set of notes for digging. Yesterday it topped out at 109~110. I am sleeping in his pickup camper in the shop. it is plugged in and I run the AC. Last night it was 90 at 9. That was pretty damn bony digging. I think his house is one of the sundown chalet models at this link, it is a prow house with a 5 sided prow footing with some thickened footings for appearance logs and beams. https://lazarusloghomes.com/log-cabin-kits-floor-plans-models-prices/chalet-style-homes/ The footing drops down 2 more feet across the front, the frost depth here is 30" and it is a walkout. I have the two angled footings dug to depth, all that is left is back up and dig a 6x6 hole 4" deeper at the point where I am sitting, for a 4'x4'x16" footing.

Curious question - Since you are digging the footings with the mini why form them and not earth cast them? Here 99% of the footings are all earth cast/trench footings.

we don't see that here so much. This happens a lot, the footing steps down like this. They got a bit of wood set today while I was digging.

On the way home, out in the middle of nowhere I see a car on the side of the road and an elderly gentleman outside the passenger door. He waved at me as I passed and I could tell he wanted a little assistance. He had those wraparound disposable sunglasses you get when you are dilated for a procedure. He had hired his neighbor to drive him the ~100 miles to Spokane to get this done, and the gas gauge was not functioning on his Mustang GT. I made room in the car and we drove into Wilbur, and he got two gallons and a can. It was not enough to get it going, due to the angle on the side of the road and uphill. While we are finding this out a Lincoln County sheriff turned around and set up behind me, and got out to inquire about the situation. He was a pleasant fellow and was guarding our 6, when it became apparent we were going to run the battery down to no avail. I looked in my trunk and found a Cat brand ratchet strap, and set it up to tow him over the hill. The driver hooked it up and we made some plans about what we would do, then I hooked that 3200 pound plus car to my 90hp beetle and got him off the shoulder and up the hill. Off we went with Sheriff's escort, and by the time we were rolling downhill towards the gas station the driver got it fired up, so I pulled over and away we all went on our merry way. The passenger was a fellow union operator, who had spent the last 25 years of his career running the Corps of Engineers barge on Banks Lake. He started working on those dam projects when he got out of the Army in 1963.

skyking1 said: we don't see that here so much. This happens a lot, the footing steps down like this. View attachment 292477 They got a bit of wood set today while I was digging. View attachment 292478 Click to expand... The steps in earth cast footings are formed with plywood. Often the footings will jump 8-9' in elevation from basement to main level garage. The footing is formed vertical agains the face of the bank then the concrete wall abuts it. Small steps 1.5-2' are also formed and rebar bent.

The retiree I replaced has a beach lot that his father had left him. They had many happy memories there, but no one has used it since maybe 1990. Mother nature abhors a vacuum and she filled it back in. I had offered to clean it back up for him and this is the weekend. I was going to take the big machine down there but we went with the mini. It did the thing OK, the only real lack was the ability to smash the brush down. The little dump truck sucks for production, but it is what I have. I took the tailgate off with the 120 and made a little plywood gate to keep the dribbles in. We hand trimmed up a load and got it all tucked in there like a loaf of bread. I can dump it tomorrow, and have maybe 5 more loads on the ground to haul. The deer down here are like puppies. They did not care about us or the equipment. The 60 year old picnic table is becoming one with nature. There is water there next to the big fir tree. The windrow on the left is what is left to load out. I'd wish for a 40 yard trash box with steel edges, but then again I'd want the 120 to load that too. Who am i kidding I'd want a 200!

I hauled out three loads of brush and the pit that I was taking the brush to is also the source of the red clay that they use to bridge over the sand in Ocean shores. The old guy that owned the pit for many, many years is still working there. He says he sold a million yards this stuff. I was able to get the back haul which is such a rarity. I got two loads placed and then we're called and moved up a dig that I was going to do on Wednesday to today. That really screwed things up because I was just about done and I was going to finish this morning down there.

That wad of brush on the right is sitting on a spot I wanted to widen with the clay. Oh well. The rusty red posts are the original gate posts from the 60's, we found them and I straightened them up. That red clay stuff has little smooth stones in it. It bones up and seals off the sand. If you just put rock on the sand it trades places with it over time. I found the water meter as I was loading up. It was lost in the brush and luckily I did not knock it in.

I did a little job last month at the site of a fire where we dug up and abandoned services prior to demolition. The new building is similar in size. I worked around a nice little Johnny. Dipping bedding out of the truck. I came back the next day to pick up the machine and drop a few more buckets around the pipe. I did not want to unhook the trailer, so I hung ten.

Back to eastern Washington yesterday to prepare and unload two semi loads of log cabin. He rented an 8042 Skytrak telehandler, about 25K of 4 wheel cookie cutter. The good news is it had a swing carriage and I could show him how that makes you look good He moved all those trailers after this picture, and I tried to take that stock feeder around behind them. That's when I found the bottomless soft spot. Luckily I did not get the back axle in, or we would have been screwed. I went in all the way to the axle where that right trailer is sitting. He filled it in with the kubota, and we did not go there no mo. I did squirt all this across that spot. More of that truckload. The other truckload I landed up this bank. It is soft and we had to double stack dunnage to get out from under the loads.