One of the normal things that goes on around here that most people who know us see happening is the spreading of gravel. With the sheer size of the area we're trying to cover, there will be many many gravel runs done before all is said and done. Even when we do manage to cover all the ground that we intended to cover, we'll still keep spreading gravel over some areas to touch them up as high traffic and the elements push some gravel into the dirt more. I will keep up with the gravel until we have such a thick layer of gravel on all the grounds that we will be able to drive a Mack truck over even the worst areas of the yard without it sinking in. This gravel run was intended to cover more area in the general parking area between the main driveway and the west end of the house. At this point there's enough gravel laid down that all we need is one more good patch to lay that is the width of the F250 before this gravel patch meets up with the gravel patch of the side driveway/car park. When that area is covered I can then move some stuff around before trying to gravel up the area going northwest towards the perimeter fence corner where there's a couple of pine trees. This area is supposed to be where the trailers are to be stored. But in all actuality I'm choosing to lay gravel over the midway going between the house and the garden. There's still some area in front of where the Monte is currently parked that is mushy and is in serious need of gravel. I'm going to focus next on covering this area with gravel once we're done with the western end of the yard where we're currently laying gravel. With the gravel taken care of, the next thing is to split up some fresh firewood i had cut from a couple of dead trees I brought down recently. Since these trees were dead the wood actually had a chance to season in place and be ready for use almost immediately. Of course most of these trees that end up like this do so because of these beetles that bore their way through the trunk, making a network of tunnels all through the tree, laying eggs and hatching even more beetle larvae which in turn grow up and do the same thing, creating a whole beetle civilization within this tree. After the tree inevitably dies, the beetles continue doing their thing until someone like me comes along and chops the tree up and splits it then throws the different suburbs of the beetle-opolis into the 1000 degree heat of a wood stove or open fire pit. With the wood all cut into the sizes I needed I then started splitting the logs into the final chunks that will be used for the stove or can fire. With every log I split I found more and more beetle daycare centers with hundreds of the little white larvae hiding within. The insulation from the inches of wood would've kept these beetles nice and cozy through the winter until the temps went up enough for them to continue to grow and turn into the destructive beetles that are killing these pine trees around here. After some serious splitting I finally managed to get all of the logs finished off. I had a double stack of logs split and drying back out, awaiting their turn as destiny as a heat source. As before, almost every log I split up had beetle larvae infesting the piece with tunnels running all through the trunk. I had to actually tap out the bunched in larvae so when I brought in the logs so these little bastards don't end up somehow infesting the wood of the house and causing a problem there too. Of course the super cold weather made fast work of the exposed beetles so after a few days these pieces of shit weren't really a problem. With this work done, I managed to add to my firewood supply as well as get some more cleanup taken care of around the yard. The more that gets cleaned up the more I'll be able to move around when it comes to moving vehicles and other equipment through the yard, and beside, it just looks better when there isn't shit all over the place.
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May 2023
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