A Shovel Ready Project

I’m not spending 100% of my time fighting the Rearrangeritis War. I still try to spend a couple hours a day writing, although not as fast as I would like, and portions of almost every day with chores around the homestead.  One such chore is maintaining the driveway.

If you recall, several years ago I had the driveway to the barn rebuilt with hard packed “Limestone dust,” a pea gravel sized aggregate in common use out here in the hinterlands.  (Shangri-la is immediately adjacent to a gravel quarry).  The material packs to become almost concretious and serves its purpose well.

Then came the monster ice storm of last winter and the torrential rains of last spring.  The frost-heave and runoff from these events took its toll not only on my microhydropower waterline, soon to be replaced en toto, but now I must spend moments of many days reconstructing the crown and shoulders of the roadway.  The material is so hard it broke my hoe so I must break it down with a derelict adz, the only tool I have with the heft and robustness to accomplish the task.  It was one of several old adzes I bought at a tool auction many moons ago.  Two of the adzes are kept razor sharp, but this one is just a beefy hoe that I use for all sorts of digging fun.  I repaired the original hoe but now use it mostly as a rake.  The adz has the additional advantage of being three times wider than my pickaxe, which would have been my other option.