Wednesday, May 18, 2022

 The alarm went off this morning and I was not feeling it.  I could have slept a couple more hours at least.  But, they needed the trailer and I wanted to get over to the property so I got hoofing it down the highway.  So, the only stop I made was fuel and that was it.  325 miles later, I was meeting the dispatchers. The dispatch manager was as cold as ice.  Not amenable at all, didn't understand that, but that's on her.  My dispatcher who is under her was very amenable and we talked for quite a while. And then the dispatcher that quit and then came back to work for them - she is no longer dispatching but they keep her busy apparently. 

 I talked with my dispatcher for about half an hour, I didn't want to be rude.  I wanted out of there tho.  2 crews of people on the property, I need to see what's going on!

Got home, got the dog, got my hiking shoes and got out there.  I passed by the dirt work crew - absolutely amazed at how much they had gotten done.  I mean, they basically have the dirt work done they just need to dig the hole to put the junk dirt in.  

But I wanted to get to the back of the property to see what the mulcher dude had gotten done. Amazing - he had done half of it and had widened it all out to be big enough to drive a pickup truck back in there.  I don't want to drive a pickup truck in there, but it is nice to have in case someone got hurt and emergency services needed to get back there or whatever, really, I just really liked the trails being widened out like that.  

There were two trails he hadn't started yet, so I took the dog and got with it on the east side.  Marked it out with paint where I wanted the trail to go - all the way to the back and curve around to the stream. Then I want him to go all the way back around and create a trail on the other side so it's a big loop - I didn't mark that out, leave that to his discretion, just don't take down big trees, please.  And don't take down any pine trees, thank you.  Well, I gave him permission to take down two pine trees that were in the way of building a campground area for tents.  They were small and I wouldn't miss a couple of them gone. 

The east side needed to be marked because it's close to the property line and there is nothing there marking the property line.  I have the property corners marked on my GPS so I just kept it about 30 feet west of the invisible property line.  

Anyway, this dude is saying that tractors are cheap and the brush hog attachment. Lol, I don't think so.  I was asking if he thought I could use a zero-turn on it as the first guy had stated and he said no, not right at first, you'll need to brush hog it for a while before you can use one of those.  

I don't own that equipment so I will just have to have someone do it for me to start with. Plenty of brush-hog people around these parts.  I still think I can keep a lot of brush down just riding my 4 wheeler on it. That's been in the shop 3 days now and have heard nothing. But, the dude may have not gotten to it yet or he may have to order parts for it. I'm not going to bug him about it, but I wouldn't mind getting a second 4 wheeler - used of course - to go along with that one so we can have fun at the property.  

Is it time to get excited? Sort of.  They can't finish the dirt work until the underground utility locator comes out.  I was going to have that done and spaced it out, he waited too long.  I figured he would - so many things to think about it just slipped my mind. No, he didn't ask me to get that done I just thought he probably would forget until the time to come out.  

However, that's just to dig a hole and put that "bad" dirt in and make good dirt available. That is not going to stop them from finishing the dirt work.  It will be done tomorrow and then I can start measuring out lots.  I have that all planned out in my mind, just going to have to go to Lower's and get a bunch more wood marking sticks.  I don't know what the contractor's schedule is, but I'm going to get done what I need to get done and he can come whenever he is available to do it.

However, it is not going to be worded that way to him. I am going to tell him it's all marked out, come take a look if you need, otherwise the rest of what needs to be done is on you, when are you coming? 

That's it for now. Tomorrow is the dreaded doctor appointment. Really, really, really don't want to do it but I made the appointment and it's a done deal.  Get it over with and get on with everything else.  I am hoping they have the dirt work done in time for me to get over there and start marking lots out immediately.  I also want to get grass growing pretty quick in the areas that are not driveways or pads so I don't have a bunch of weeds growing back up.  How many bags of grass seed will I need for that?  Uhh, I dunno, but I'm gonna look around for better pricing than Lowe's. They're expensive for grass seed, but then again, probably everyone is.

With that, I'm ending this one. 

 Friday late-morning Typical morning when there is no work.  It was, I should say, until the new guy called.  "There's nothing wron...