Putting in a driveway in a monsoon... The perils of access in the rain

Since my last post, 3 months have passed. My house almost sold, but it fell through on closing day,  Dec.1st. Back to the drawing board on that. I had spent all my extra time up until then moving the last of my stuff out and spiffing it up to hand over. No such luck. So, on December 1st, with the house finally empty, I turned my attention to getting onto the farm property before the ground freezes. I still have hope my potted willows will survive the winter if I can heel them in. 

What I wanted

  

What I'm getting

It took a month to find someone to do it, but now there is actual progress. Not what I wanted - a big circular drive with the field area plowed and the whole property graded. But what I needed was access, and that's turned out to be pretty complicated. 

You can see a 20'x20' area they are scraping for 
my first planting site. 

First of all, there is a deep drainage ditch and a berm to keep runoff from the street off the property. That means a culvert was needed to be put in, something that can take the weight of heavy equipment like dump trucks and cement trucks. That and the street is actually angled away from my property (good) but it makes the drop from the road steeper (Bad).  Just to get 100 feet of driveway on a gentle angle and a small turnaround/parking area has taken 6 loads of gravel and dirt and more on the way, 

And then there's the weather. The guys were out there the day after the rain and the ground still had standing water on it. Now is a good time mention that this property failed a perc test, which is why I was able to buy it to farm - it's too expensive to overcome the high water table with a septic system, and city water/sewer is several years in the future. That high water table showed up this week in spades. 

The photos on this page are from two days after the big rain (and the day before another one). The driveway itself is on high enough ground but the turnaround is still mud. You can see the pooling next to the railroad timbers - not great. I definitely know where the low spots are now. 

The guys doing this are young and somewhat new, which is why I was able to afford even this much work, but even at that, it's twice what I budgeted. Luckily, I had already budgeted for railroad timbers, and they are proving to be essential. 

Another load of gravel is on its way, and more timbers. The whole ticket is around 10K. I can siphon off funds from other planned infrastructure, but it means everything will take a little longer to get that circular drive, a barn and the use of the whole property. 

And it's still too wet to finish. It will be in the teens this week and I am almost out of time to heel in my willow starts. I can put down straw to solidify some of the mud in the meantime, and I've signed up for free wood chips - hope that works out!