A tough week on Hammond Drive

Let's start with the good news:

Our driveway is not just driveable, it's a breeze! Buddy Jones, musician, traveller, and re-surfacer supreme arrived with machinery, friend and helper Wadaba, some sort of polymer, and a bunch of talent, and created a real useable surface out of the mess that was our driveway.

Check it out:
No bumps; no ruts; no need to tell people to back up and take a run at it!

A major part of the process involved using a roller that compacted and compacted the decomposed granite (dg) and rock that we have. Wadaba (nickname of Mamady Kourauma, which I can't begin to pronounce) drove the roller:


It's quite an interesting process that results in a very firm, even surface that still looks like it belongs in a country setting. We are very pleased.

Now the bad news: For those who have followed this blog from the beginning, do you remember all the water line problems??? Well, they returned to haunt us.


This little area of wet dirt was the first clue. No water in that area, at least theoretically. No faucets that could leak. No watering that had taken place. Nothing. Except the buried, deeply buried, water line. Oops. You can actually see the little point of silvery-looking water that is the moving water bubbling up from underneath. In the background is our small rock wall and the recently planted bank. Oops.




Scottie, ever the hard worker, did a bunch of hand digging, and a big backhoe did the rest. (More about that later.)

The problem turned out to be a poor repair job in one of the places the line was broken and repaired by the dirt guy who did the work when we built. Not good. It's fixed now, but I'm thinking there may be repercussions between the water district and the original breaker/fixer.

We also had 3 or 4 days where Buck would go outside and immediately roll in all the muddy dirt. This morning he's out there checking out the drying pile of dirt as if lamenting his loss of cool, damp dirt. He doesn't know it yet, but we've got a doggie pool for he and Cocoa. More on that later too.



And, yours truly got installed as the Treasurer of the Three Rivers Arts Alliance. The Alliance has been around for decades and has gotten a bit stale (my opinion). I think it's going to be shaken up this year.



(As an aside, I think I'm getting rid of my new skirt with the dropped waist, supposed to be quite smart. It is when first put on. When I sit, it rides up around my rib cage [what is supposed to keep it down?], then looks like my entire middle is a big blob.)

A good part of that shaking will be courtesy of Keio Ogawa, the front and center gal in this photo:

Keio, who is the wife of Wadaba, is a very accomplished drummer who records, performs, teaches and takes no prisoners. She is campaigning to expand the Alliance to include performing arts as well as visual arts. So, for the installation ceremony she brought 3 friends (including Buddy Jones, our driveway guy) to perform. It was way cool!

So, it's been a busy week, including a day and night without water, but a lot has been accomplished. And, as always, when I'm able to go with the flow and remember NOT to push the river, it's all worked out well. Trying to push that ol' river of life back against its current just never seems to work, does it?

House is filthy, really FILTHY, from all the dirt stirred up by driveway work and repair work plus and the mud tracked in by Scottie (from working) and Buck (from playing), but we are taking a day off. Really. I'll clean tomorrow.