The Gravel War

This is what happens when you purchase a lot with what initially looks like an inch or two of pea gravel and you decide to move it and lay sod or grass seed. Recently laid off I decided to keep busy so we decided the yard needs to be green and I badly wanted a garden and fruit trees. It took most of that year to dig myself into then out of this trap or war and remove almost all the gravel. I will never, ever buy a lot with that stuff again! Standing in that yard under full sunlight was like a broiler and an oven; heating elements top and bottom.

The heat would beat down on you and would also radiate up off the gravel. Sampling only a tiny area that was only a couple of inches deep, I ASSUMED that the whole yard was only that deep. OOPS! After moving a few 5-gal buckets full I started finding areas where the gravel was 2 then 3 then 4 then 5, and some areas 6 inches deep.

By the time I realized this, I had already moved quite an amount of gravel. While standing there and just about to decide to stop, a neighbor walks over snickering and she says "You really don't think you're going to move all that are you?" I was kneeling down doing something and I turned and looked up at her and said "I had been expecting you."

She obviously misunderstood that statement by the look on her face. So to ease her mind I told her that I could hear them and "yes" I am going to move the gravel. Well! That was all I needed. Its one thing to sit in your screened deck talking and giggling at me (I could hear them); it is another to come over and challenge me to my face and assume I was making a play for her too! Thanks to her, I made up my mind.

The gravel war is on. Before I continue, and this is for the guys who are cheap. Get a sturdy wheel-barrow. This means one with pneumatic tires, preferably one with two front tires. You understand momentarily. Also, you will learn that a garden spade is nowhere as good as a square-point shovel for gravel.

I started with a garden spade and a two five gallon buckets. After each bucket was filled, I would walk them over to the area where I started this mini mountain and dumped them. This is ok until about the 25^th trip and your traps and hands and calves are burning. As the mountain grew then my shoulders begin taking a beating from lifting the buckets up enough to dump them out. All the while you can hear your neighbors giggling and chatting and drinking beer watching me.

It took a few days but finally the buckets broke and I had to buy a wheelbarrow. Purchased along with the wheelbarrow, I got a square point shovel, major improvements. Now that I'M using a wheelbarrow I soon realize that I need to clear paths through the gravel otherwise you would just end up killing yourself.

Karen came out to help me one day...one day and I never saw her there again except to bring me something cold to drink and a wet towel. My body ached more than any time playing sports, power lifting; nothing compared to that.

Another lesson learned is that while the yard looked level that was because enough gravel was laid to make it that way. DUH! Once you remove the gravel you uncover uneven ground. Hit one good bump and you dump the load so care had to be taken until I traversed the yard enough that most of the bumps were smoothed out. The wheelbarrow was a blessing and a curse.

Yes, you carried more gravel and faster but, as the mountain grows you can't keep dumping the gravel at the base because it only spreads out. The curse comes when you have to shovel that gravel twice, into the barrow then out of the barrow. Eventually, the pneumatic tire never stayed inflated and the frame was bent pretty good but I never bought another one. It just had to do.

To prevent the mountain from spreading out I set stakes around the mountain to hold the gravel back. I learned to cut 2x4's and set them deep enough so the weight wouldn't collapse them. This meant buying a sledge. Spend more money!

With the first mountain made, I began letting people know that there was pea gravel for free. Just come and get it. From here I started the garden and created a small area where I chopped most of a stump out and covered with garden soil and top soil and planted roses.

I won't go into all the people who came by but I will tell you about the best three. The first was a bunch of guys with a full size pickup and trailer who, upon looking at my mountain laughed and said they could take it all at one time. I gave them a slight grin and said "ya really think so?" I did to them what my neighbor did to me. J After a few minutes you could see the truck bed sink lower and lower and lower. They weren't paying too close attention because a couple of guys were loading the truck bed and the others were loading the trailer.

I just watched, snickering to myself. "Think ya can get out?" I asked him and of course he said yes with an expletive. He got in, started it up, hit the gas and.....nothing! Both truck and trailer were bottomed out. They didn't budge an inch. You look at the mountain and it didn't look they even touched it HAHAHA! They had to work again to unload enough to get out. They said they would come back but they never did. What a hard lesson in humility.

The next bunch was a group of retirees who were members of a local church and they came with a full size pickup truck. These guys came pumped up and raring to go! Four of them, each had a shovel; a couple drove their own vehicles. They too had misconceptions about how much gravel was there and how much they would actually leave with. I asked these gentlemen as they shoveled if they thought they could take all that and they enthusiastically affirmed their commitment. They worked so aggressively that on a number of occasions there were near misses at people's heads with the shovels. I decided to go inside awhile. Karen came out and offered cold drinks.

It was dejavous all over again only this time they checked before they tried to drive away. One of them ran his hand along the tire to learn that OOPS! It is bottomed out! As happened to the last bunch, they had to shovel gravel out to get out.

This time though I was sympathetic because of their ages. By the time they were done, one was sitting slouched on the gate, another was trying to clean out his shoes and moving slowly, another one was half out of his car and he said that he will never do that again. Where have I heard that before? Once the truck got out, they never came back. Another bunch bites the dust of the mountain.

The last was the best. A group of four moms and six kids came by asking for gravel. They came with buckets, one lady used the trunk of her car, and others had wagons, kid's wagons...red ones! I loaded the car, not bottoming it out then I loaded up the kid's buckets and wagons. They all lived only a few blocks down the street. Once loaded up they began to leave except for one little girl who started crying because the right rear wheel broke and fell off her wagon.

So I told her to hang on a minute while I went to the work shed. I got a pair of pliers and a hammer, straightened out what was left of the cotter pin and we walked together down the street stopping now and then to fix the wheel. She was so happy she could contribute! More people came by but nothing happened worth noting. After that week, I built the equivalence of two more of those mountains but the amount of work was much less and I didn't have to spend as much time on it.

The neighborhood committee was so happy to see it go then they turn around giving me warnings of fines because I wasn't moving the gravel fast enough and the property looked "ugly." Retirees with nothing better to do. If I could have, I would have dumped a ton in front of the clubhouse door. We finally got them off our backs. Eventually, I had a beautiful, productive garden, so much so I had to give food away. The yard was green and we had six fruit trees, aloe plants and a grape vine. I was in pretty good shape after that too. Too bad there is no room to upload all the pictures.