Good Morning!!!! 50F @ 4:45AM. Steady light rain this morning. Showers continuing this afternoon. High 62F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
I heard gurgling in the gutters when I awoke this morning, but it wasn't even enough to wet the concrete on the patio when I peeked out. It's stopped now, but the weather guessers are forecasting more rain later in the day. The radar map seems to show it dissipating as it moves north, so it's not looking good for more.
Added a column in the spreadsheet to calculate the gradient for the driveway, and a new plot to get a better idea of how it looks.
I see now why some vehicles had trouble getting up and out, as rise over run jumps to over 20% in one spot. And that seems flat compared to what I was on yesterday, so now I'll have to take a walk with the GPS on the new cleared ground to satisfy my curiosity.
Finished scraping the largest clearing yesterday, moving very slowly on the very steep and very uneven ground. Still found that back dragging the lid on the 4in1 worked the best, but never got comfortable driving over the resulting mound when I got to the bottom of the hill. Always felt like the front end was going waaaaay up in the air, and sometimes one wheel or the other on the back end would end up higher or lower than the other, resulting in an alarming amount of tilt to the side. Once over, I got to drop the box blade and push the dirt and sticks the rest of the way down the hill, creating something of a berm. I quickly learned to do that slowly, too, because if the blade caught on a rock or root, the back end of the tractor would rise up enough to produce quite a pucker in the driver's seat. I don't know if the berm is a good thing or not, or even if a good rain won't just wash all the dirt out leaving a pile of sticks. I also consolidated the wood in the three burn piles, and pushed enough dirt up below each one to create another berm that will hopefully catch anything that rolls out on the steep slope. Another reason to wait for a rainy day to fire them off, which I was hoping for today. The best the 10-day has to offer is "Partly Cloudy".
Hope everyone's week gets off to a great start!