Sable Lake and New Driveway

Yesterday I was feeling well enough to go on a good hike in the dunes by Sable Lake.  It was very warm for mid-November.  Later this week the bottom is supposed to drop out of our temperature, but this warm fall has been much appreciated!

For a decade I have struggled with my driveway.  Since I would like to start conducting workshops at my house, it is absolutely necessary to repair my driveway.  There is a bed of sandstone that lets out in the middle of my driveway.  Thus, in the spring the snow melt water runs across that sandstone and lets out in the middle of my driveway.  This year, and many years in the past, it is a good thing that I have a Suburban with high clearance and four wheel drive so that I can successfully maneuver the ruts and get up my driveway.  However, it has been difficult for people with regular passenger cars to make it up the severely rutted slope of my 400 foot driveway.  This is what the driveway looked like this past spring.  The mud was an absolute quagmire.  For weeks I had to park at the bottom of the driveway and walk up the mud to my house.

Since spring I have had to deal with the ruts, each and every day.  This picture does not adequately show the rough terrain.

So I decided that I can no longer deal with it.  This year I decided that I have to get it fixed.  The contractor finally came yesterday.

First they leveled the ruts and re-contoured the slope.

To prevent future erosion, they next put down geotextile fabric.

Then the gravel......

As it was getting dark, the contractor arrived with more gravel to finish the bottom section.  Today they are coming back to dig a few drainage channels.  Over the winter I will plan possible retreats and classes that I'll conduct at my house in 2016 so that I can get a return on this investment.