Dear X-Air, Blick, and WeatherCat observers of construction, . . .
Dirt for a roadbed?! Around here, "dirt" is some form of clay.
This isn't a permanent roadbed at all. They simply removed all the old asphalt and left us with a layer of compacted dirt as a temporary road. It appears to be part of their cost-savings. It takes much longer to remove the old asphalt than to apply new asphalt. So they start removing road and keep doing it until they have enough mileage to justify putting asphalt back. Then they bring asphalt in an amazing convoy of trucks and literally pave miles in a day or two. Sadly, our street was the first to be stripped, so we'll have to cope with the dirt the longest.
Sorry you have to deal with that, but at least they have you to help them. Hang in there.
I'll do the best I can, not much else I can do.
However, there is news on this project. This morning the water pressure was unusually low. We thought it was something related to the construction. Instead the water main had burst one house below ours. I suppose the stress of removing the asphalt was enough to break an old pipe. Our local water utility had a truck out repairing the main this morning:
In the meantime, the wildlife is coping with the situation as best as they can. Here is a very revealing picture:
If you look carefully, on the lawn in the center of the picture is a doe and her two fawns. They were eating grass (something dear normally never do,) and they were eating
while the crews were working on the water main! You can see the same picket fence that runs along side the street in the earlier picture.
This afternoon, they were running a machine to reduce the height of the earth they had piled up yesterday. This was quite an operation. Here is a dump truck being loaded by the earth leveling machine:
Here is the boom of the machine that has the conveyor belt that lifts the soil and sends it into the dump truck:
Finally, here is a photo of the side of machine itself:
It has been quite a show in front of the house, but it is a noisy and dusty show as well. I'm glad I got through the yard chores early!
Cheers, Edouard