I didn't hear any rain last night.  But looking out the window this morning, everything was wet.  Having no idea whether they were out there doing the gravel install or not, I went and woke the boys up, they got dressed, I got ready to go. 

It's Thanksgiving holiday week, they are off school the entire week.  It didn't sound too good with the older boy coughing pretty good and telling me he didn't feel good, but I at least needed to get out there and see if the contractor's crew was out there.  

I just didn't know what I would see when I got there, but it didn't appear as if it had rained too much. Sure enough, turning onto the driveway to my property, there they were.  The large dozer was sitting in the driveway and a Bobcat was brought out as well.  

There were two guys, one was the operator the other a foreman.  The operator is a real nice guy, really laid back. The other guy I've seen a few times before, my word for him would be unfriendly.  But whatever, I don't need them to be my best friends, I just need the work done. I was chatting with the operator when a truck pulled in the driveway.  10 wheeler - bobtail truck, regular old dump truck.  

He came down, dumped the load and left, when another one and then another came in.  3 trucks were running back and forth all day long from my property to the place where they were getting the rock.  Something like 6 miles away.  Maybe 7.  

I asked the dozer operator if he would push down all of those posts that used to hold up the gate.  The gate, as previously mentioned, is useless now and the gas company knew it would be useless after seeing how my new driveway bypassed the gate. That wasn't my design, actually, it was the contractor's.  I had laid out the stakes for all of the lots and the width of the driveway, but the ends of the driveway?  "I'll leave at your discretion" was my comment to the contractor who said sure.

Well, I was very pleased, actually, with the end result and how he had made the driveway but I also figured the gas operator wouldn't be real happy with it - and they weren't, hence they put those panels all the way around their tanks and their wellhead.  

I had to take videos and pics.  I wanted this day to be memorialized if you will. Something I can look at in the future and say, yes, this is the day when everything actually started to materialize into a real, running business.  

We left.  Boys were hungry, took them to IHOP for breakfast.  They wanted to go back to the property, but I wanted to go home and get my computer, I planned on staying out at the property longer and I wanted my computer with me in case I decided to install the new campground software.  But I realized I would have to do that on the phone with the company rep and that wouldn't be possible with those boys around.  Canned that idea. The boys insisted on going for a hike in the back of the property, so I obliged them.

Back to the front to watch more of the operation going on, the oldest was coughing now.  Well, coughing more now.  We had been out there several hours at that point, I decided I best get him home and take his temp and get him out of the cold.  We no more got into the house and he basically was toast.  He got very warm, very quickly and was up to 100.6 temp.  20 minutes later he was almost to 102 and hacking - very unpleasant sounding hacking.  Like, really not so much fun stuff.  

We just got past this last sickness and here we are again. Now? There is some RSV I think it's called cold going around that is basically a normal cold but it's sending kids and older people to the hospital.  I can only hope this doesn't happen with him or his brother, who probably will come down with it as well. And me?  I tried to keep my distance from him as much as possible today. And downing zinc, Vitamin C and other stuff.  

I hung out the rest of the afternoon at home, I wasn't about to take him back out the way he was looking and feeling. But, when mom got home I did go back to the property and it looked pretty well finished. My only thought was about the west side, back-in lots. They don't look like they are 65 feet long.  I'm going to have to measure it tomorrow. My 300 foot tape measure finally gave up the ghost.  I got almost 2 years of use out of it, I can't really complain.  I don't know if I need another one that long, but I do need something at least 100 feet long.  

I feel like a big weight has been taken off of my shoulders today.  Yes, there is still plenty to do before opening day, quite a lot actually, but it's all "small" stuff.  Ok, the campground software might be a pain, I don't know but I will work through it - probably tomorrow - and get it done.  Putting up the rest of the signs.  Working more on Quick books.  

I am going to wait on buying several hoses, it's supposed to rain 3 days in a row this week, if that happens, that should be enough to get all of that seed sprouting.  Well I don't know.  I can't afford to wait for grass to grow, I need it growing now.  I may just go ahead and get a couple of hoses and just have to go through the pain of moving them 7 times to get everything watered. It's not supposed to rain until Thursday and I don't want to wait that long.  

I may very well have to postpone opening day from the 1st until whenever - soon - but until the grass is going well enough to have everything green and looking decent.  Well, take that back.  I can't be going out there tomorrow with a sick boy, I'll just wait until Thursday - Thanksgiving Day is showing a 98% chance of rain. I hope so because I don't think I'm going to spend Thanksgiving at the property watering the ground.  

If nothing else, tho, I can go to Lowe's quick tomorrow and get the materials to build those benches.  I can do that work at the house and just transport them over to the property when I'm done.  James has a miter saw and I want to use that for nice, clean, straight cuts.  Which means I best be looking at a video again tonight to watch again how to build these simple but nice-enough benches.  Nothing fancy here, folks, just a place to sit around a fire. If people want to socialize, there it will be.  I'll have a cord of wood delivered and have it stacked near where the fire is going to be.  This will be a freebie, at least to start with.  Cornhole is also a freebie and wouldn't mind getting some horseshoe pits going.  

And whatever else I can find that is outdoorsy in nature and appealing.  I think the larger fire pit would be nice just because it's getting into winter and the temps have definitely dipped.

Anyway, the dozer operator did, indeed, remove all of those posts.  I put the panel in the back next to the gas operation tanks - if they want it back, they can have it.  I have no need for it but even if I did, it's not really mine and I don't want to be accused of stealing something.  This saved me a lot of work - I would have had to cut those posts down with a chainsaw and there would be a bit sticking out of the ground. The dozer just removed them entirely, lol.

Oh, and they dumped gravel into that area along the old driveway that was a mud pit. I would have preferred they dump dirt in there first and then gravel.  I think that would have worked better.  I do think I will need a small machine out there when I get the gravel dumped for the old driveway.  I watched them doing it today and tho the truck can dump it while driving, it's far from and exacting science.  The operator today did agree 2 inches would be enough, at least.  Let's try to keep the costs down at this point.  It will be hard to part with 28k for that gravel, but what was I supposed to do?  

There was nothing else.  I couldn't get the gravel as cheap as the contractor did and I know I would have gotten higher bids from everyone else around.  That's just the nature of this contractor, he's fair and probably the best around. He just doesn't like to communicate.  Apparently his phone rings constantly all day long.  I mean, non stop and then the texts.  Seems like he needs to delegate some responsibility and have someone else help him handling that stuff?  

Don't know, I do know that the only thing really left is to get the septic system running. It's all hooked up, it just needs to be turned on once - stuff - starts getting dumped into it lol.  

Well that's it. It's been a long day and there are many more long days ahead of me before I can open up this thing and get it going. 

But, it's all good!