Heat, JEEP Lessons, Gravel & My Home is On the Way
The Florida sun was already blasting bright as I headed to the property early this Sunday morning. It was 90 with a projection of getting to 95. The “Feels Like” of my weather app already said 99. SIDENOTE: I can’t tell you how much that “Feels Like” indicator cracks me up. I know it is an algorithm that mathematically calculates humidity and other factors, but I always imaging some little guy sitting there in the meteorology station and turning to the other meteorologist at the station and saying, “Hey, go outside and tell me what it feels like…” The 2nd meteorologist goes outside and shouts back, “Feels like 99!” and the 1st meteorologist saying “Thanks!” and plugs it into the report. Good Gawd that dates me doesn’t it? Are there really even meteorologists any more or is it all AI. I dunno’ but I still find it funny as hell. And YES, it felt like 99 already.
I had one job and one job only on my mind as I got to the property and that was to prepare the garden area for the delivery of the storage shipping container that we will use for all of our tools and equipment in the garden. This container will be a glorified big shed. It will be a 40′ high cube used container. I spent the week watching delivery videos which said I need 120′ (including the 45′ foot slab that was now ready. This is so the deliver truck can pull in, turn around and back the truck bed up onto the slab, sliding it off the bed and down onto the slab. The other requirement is that it be stable solid ground so that the truck doesn’t get stuck and the driver can safely do his job.
So I needed to take measurements of the path to the slab AND (Note, here comes the hard part) move the gravel from where the concrete guy had it dumped and spread, over to the proper place for the container delivery truck. I had been dreading this job of moving the gravel for weeks. Now here I was trying my best to re-contextualize it to be a job that not only I could do but that would somehow be satisfying to do LOL.
I started with doing the measurements. I rolled out my 100′ tape measure and at the shortest point I had 76′ feet beyond the 45′ foot slab, plus there was a large area used by the concrete trucks, where the driver could turn and maneuver the truck to position it. BAM! It would work!
Then I took a deep breath, slathered on my sunscreen, put on my hat and got out the gravel rake and the shovel. I had bought a mat to protect my Gorilla cart that I intended to use to transport the gravel the 30’+ to the proper area. I started by trying to rake and spread the sandy soil that had become torn up from all the cement truck movements. Figured I had to get that flattened and level first before I started hauling gravel over. About 20 minutes into the job I was ready to pass out. I headed to the Jeep cab to hang out with Gracie (who was napping in her protected Jeep area) in the air conditioning and guzzled a bottle of water.
I then headed back out to do some more raking and leveling and repeated this cycle multiple times. At some point after about and hour and 1/2 of this ridiculousness I simply wimped out. It just made no sense to torture myself like this any more. I was getting nowhere already and hadn’t even begun to move gravel. It was just too hot to even think about doing this work by hand. I needed at least a piece of equipment to do this. I was picturing an excavator or tractor with a bucket or something other than just me on the ground with a rake, shovel and cart. This wasn’t small pretty pea gravel … this was great big chunks of gravel and crushed concrete … not easy to even move with a rake let alone load into the cart and wheel to another area. I was done for the day.
It isn’t lost on me that every video I see of this being done it is done by someone 1/2 my age and 2x bigger than me in 40 degree fall weather somewhere up north. LOL. There is this bats%%t crazy part of me that somehow sees that and goes “Ohhhhhh, I see how it’s done” and then magically translates that into, “Yep, I can do that!”. So many times along this journey I have proven to myself that it CAN be done just NOT the way the folks in those videos do it. I love YouTube University but they don’t have a rating for everyone … like I need the ones for the 66 year old, 90 lb, 5’2″ woman in 99 degree weather. Come to think of it I never see those. It is one of the things that had me start my YouTube channel when I bought the property … just to document how I was going to need to do things … in case there might be others in my demographic who would possibly appreciate it LOL.
So, I was done for the day and off to plot HOW I would get it done another way that would probably include hioring someone 1/2 my age and 2x my size with big equipment. In my state of being worn out I got my final lesson for the day. I went back to the home area in the Jeep and was cleaning up a few things and had the tailgate down. This is how I discovered that the reverse/back-up camera does not work that way. I went to back up and my back tires hit a big mound of dirt, left by the cement guys, that I couldn’t see and the back of the truck jetted back into a tree. That was my first big JEEP boo-boo. I felt my eyes well up when I got out and inspected it finding a dent in the bed wall and a broken tail light and damage to my bumper. I apologized to Athie, the JEEP and promised here I would get her fixed up as soon as I could. NOW, I was definitely done for the day.
The rest of the day I just walked around finding new plants and taking drone videos. I hadn’t had Birdie the drone out for a while so I had to relearn most of the things I had learned before but at least I was having fun. I headed back to where I live still somehow content with my day … I just know that even a not-so-great day on the land is still an amazing and exciting day!
I posted videos, on the Freedom Acres YouTube Channel, of the gravel area, the measurement process, the damaged Jeep, several Birdie, the drone, videos of the home and garden area with the new slab and piers and as always my exciting end of the day report with Gracie. Feel free check it all out by clicking HERE. Also, feel free to subscribe and you can get notified when new videos go up! 🙂
We are now moving into mid June and I am sure I will figure out the next solution for the gravel this coming week. I think when the guys come to move my residential shiping container onto the piers I will get them to do the gravel work and prepare that area for the storage shipping container. My bet is that they will already have the equi[ptment on the property to do that.
The Game is still to be living on the property THIS Summer!! LOL. Zach from TankaBox is telling me that my residential shipping container is loaded on a truck in Texas ready to head out. They have just been waiting for all the horrible storms and flooding to clear up so they can make the drive from Texas and then through Louisiana safely. The new promise is that the truck will leave on Tuesday with a possible arrival date of Friday. I am creating he is able to do that and will keep praying, chatting with and trusting the Universe. I keep growing plants where I am living, to take there when it is time and, of course, I keep dreaming about being there!
As always, I send you FREEDOM and LOVE!
