A Big Plan for This Spring

The next project is...

Building A Driveway!

After ending 2022 with some feelings of frustration, I’m excited about this next project.

The current bottleneck on every project is getting people to the cabin safely. Contractors have gotten lost. Folks get stuck because the road is not passable for the entire winter. Heck, I worry about getting there if it’s rained in the last week!

If I want to unblock the rest of the planned work, I’ve got to simplify how to get to the cabin. That means building a new 650 foot gravel driveway entirely on my property.

Luckily, I won’t be doing it myself.

“I’ve Got a Guy”

When I first bought this cabin, a kind neighbor mentioned in passing that he hired a guy that built the road and the driveway to access his house site. I remembered that comment and recently asked him again for this person’s contact info. That neighbor couldn’t say enough positive things about this guy and happily connected us. Let’s call him “Mike” (but that’s not his name).

If I’ve learned one thing about rural living, it’s that this is the way to get things done. Mike doesn’t have a website or brick-and-mortar business. He comes highly recommended by the folks that he does good, honest work for. And he’s probably got plenty of work.

I haven’t met Mike face to face yet, but I do have a good feeling about this project. We had a great phone call and I sent over this very proper proposal document. He agreed to meet with me in the spring.

The Proposal Document

I used GIMP and GaiaGPS to estimate distances and draw things out

Here’s the message I sent along with this image:

On my property, there has been some earth work done to form a grass driveway on the north and south ends of the property. Those are the gray lines in the diagram. It has drainage pipes to route water around it already. I'd like to cover the north driveway with gravel as part of this project.

The proposed idea for a driveway is outlined in red. It would include two turnaround points, which are the red circles. Then the new driveway is about 400 feet from the bottom of the existing grass driveway to the cabin. There is also a gully running through the area that would need a drainage pipe to be buried under the road.

I'd be interested in a rough price estimate if you could possibly give one with that diagram above. If not, we can set up a site visit for some time in the spring and can go from there.

Now, this project is in the very early stages. I don’t have an cost estimate. I’m not sure my estimates of distance are right. I haven’t even shown the property to Mike yet.

I plan on meeting with him in the spring and, if all goes well, completing this project in the summer. If you want to read about that, be sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter.

The Real Spot

I know a diagram isn’t too helpful if you haven’t walked on the land, so here’s a view of where the driveway will go, looking south towards the cabin.

I used Dalle2 to edit this image. Pretty neat!

This is where the driveway ends, on the south end of the property by the cabin, roughly 400 feet across the hill.

Where the driveway will end with a gravel turn-around. Hopefully.

Completing The Loop 🔁

This idea has me all excited because I’d have a complete loop through my property and back up onto the shared road. That means easily accessing the cabin year round with a safe road instead of the rutted, muddy, steep route we currently take. The investment in a good driveway will hold in the property value too.

Building two turnaround areas would also make turning around on the sloped land much less sketchy. We’ve slid in the mud multiple times. A spot on both ends of the property to turn cars around will lower the risks of going up there (but 4WD is still required).

When we have the truck and trailer up there, turning around is even more of an ordeal. At the very least, we can drive the truck and trailer right to the cabin, then turn left up the steep south driveway and drive the shared road back out without needing to turn around.

So that’s what I’m dreaming about these days. I’ll let you know how this project moves along this year. Thanks, as always, for reading.

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Hey! If you’re new here, this is West Bluff Food Forest. I'm building a permaculture orchard and cabin home in the Finger Lakes region of New York. I write about the lessons I'm learning and update you along the way.

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