Alan in Vermont
06-08-2014, 08:08 PM
Wet weather this spring delayed our getting moving on the next phase of the range improvements at the Sportsman's Club of Franklin County.
We had a lot of settling on one of the side berms that we had started back in January. That berm needs to be 4-5 feet higher than what it had settled to. I brought in a tracked skidsteer to provide the muscle (I'm using "I" a lot because, other than a couple days of having one very marginal helper, this is a one man show) to move material. I had to cut the top of the berm level and get it wide enough so I can run a small excavator on it to shape the top. I was able to place extra material on the sides of the berm. That material will get pulled up, the sides smoothed and the top raised and shaped as I work my way along the top. It was a little "tight" working the skidsteer to smooth the path for the excavator. Not too bad going out with material to fill in the low spots but a bit tense backing off when I couldn't see if I was creeping off to one side or the other.
We are hosting a regional qualifier for the 3-D archery folks later this month and part of the range work is a 200 x 30 foot parking area which will be used by those attending that event. Unless we see a bunch of drying weather for the next two weeks there will be no parking on the grass so getting the graveled lot done was a high priority. I didn't get any pics of the work on the lot but the skidsteer got plenty of use grading the sand fill, then an 8" course of 2½" plant mix and a thin top course of 5/8" plant mix, probably 150 tons in all. There will be a couple more inches laid on top as a final step but that will wait until everything else is done and there will be no more construction traffic to mess it up.
We had a lot of settling on one of the side berms that we had started back in January. That berm needs to be 4-5 feet higher than what it had settled to. I brought in a tracked skidsteer to provide the muscle (I'm using "I" a lot because, other than a couple days of having one very marginal helper, this is a one man show) to move material. I had to cut the top of the berm level and get it wide enough so I can run a small excavator on it to shape the top. I was able to place extra material on the sides of the berm. That material will get pulled up, the sides smoothed and the top raised and shaped as I work my way along the top. It was a little "tight" working the skidsteer to smooth the path for the excavator. Not too bad going out with material to fill in the low spots but a bit tense backing off when I couldn't see if I was creeping off to one side or the other.
We are hosting a regional qualifier for the 3-D archery folks later this month and part of the range work is a 200 x 30 foot parking area which will be used by those attending that event. Unless we see a bunch of drying weather for the next two weeks there will be no parking on the grass so getting the graveled lot done was a high priority. I didn't get any pics of the work on the lot but the skidsteer got plenty of use grading the sand fill, then an 8" course of 2½" plant mix and a thin top course of 5/8" plant mix, probably 150 tons in all. There will be a couple more inches laid on top as a final step but that will wait until everything else is done and there will be no more construction traffic to mess it up.