It's a Mudder

Twice a year, generally in the spring and fall, we go through mud season.  We're living on a south facing slope that consists of gravel sand and clay.  Where our roads are is where the clay is.  Sticky, oozing, foot slogging that can mire a four by four vehicle.  To ameliorate some of the problem, I construct sidewalks to the barns and chicken houses. It is a vast improvement over slogging through the mud paths.

 

However, the paths can't cross the roads where the vehicles go.  So we end up with the quagmire below.

 

This is actually not the worst it has been.  For one, this picture was taken in the morning and the mud has actually stiffened up with the overnight frost. We have also dumped several loads of gravel in this mire.  The problem is, the clay will swallow it up. It needs some geotextile   fabric over top of a packed sub-base to keep the crushed gravel top layer from disappearing. Fortunately, we have several gravel deposits on the property.  Unfortunately, the gravel is pit run, of various sizes and rounded. It will work as a sub base but not as the top layer.  Crushed gravel is going for over $100 for a cubic yard and I could use at least 40 yards.  The arithmetic is not encouraging.

 

Another trick I will be using is to dig a french drain and install some culverts basically curving through the centre of the picture. The culvert's allowing access to the shed in the top right.  Got a great deal of some 14 inch plastic culverts which will certainly do the trick here. We have dropped tons of gravel on the kilometer long drive way to the house and installed several culverts which have made the drive in far easier, but it could still use some Geo-textile and a top dressing of crushed rock.  We're talking lottery winnings here.

During a trip to Vanderhoof to pick up some pork we had processed at the government inspected abattoir, we stopped for groceries at a mall that has a by- donation book store shelf.  Score!

 

It was a tad chilly in the Greenhouse this morning so my meditation partner suggested putting on some supplemental heat.  Ah, that's better.