gravel

Whew! I was at a landscaping place at 7:30 a.m. this morning to get gravel. I had to make a judgment call on which gravel I wanted; I ended up with granite gravel. The guy said that is what is commonly used to make the walk paths in parks. I purchased 1/4 of a "yard" for $20 plus tax. Much cheaper than the bagged stuff in the stores! I was armed with an assortment of buckets, some empty kitty litter bags, and a shovel. I mean the bags that the kitty litter comes in. Those bags are tough. Our doggie hasn't destroyed the one bag I let him play with.

An employee (actually, he might have been the owner) comes with a front loader truck (I think that's what it's called), scoops some off the big pile of gravel, and dumps it on the ground for me. I shovel from the small pile into little containers and put the containers in the car. Then I got to the big containers, where they have to be filled while they're in the car because there is no way they can be lifted. The gravel is HEAVY! Then one of the guys came out and shoveled the remainder for me. This was the harder part becuase the shovelful now has to be lifted into the car. The large containers were the two 16-gallon pots that our two trees came in, and a 50-gallon size "contractor" garbage bag.

I was concerned about the weight. From very brief research on the internet, I had estimated that it would be approximately 800 lbs. (assuming a "yard" meant a "cubic yard"). My car is specified to handle a load of 1,1xx lbs. Since I weigh less than 200 lbs. my car should be able to handle the combined load of gravel and myself. But I had not counted on the gravel being a little wet. Fortunately, my car pulled through and I'm very proud of my steed. I did 30 mph through neighborhood streets to get home.

Once home, it was imperative that I unload the car as soon as possible. I do believe the car grunted in relief with each little load I took off. Some two hours later I've cleared the car and moved all that gravel to the backyard. Did I say that the gravel was heavy? The gravel is HEAVY. I'm whipped. The critters have not had their breakfast yet, but they'll have to wait until I get a little rested. Considering that they didn't get their dinner until some time after 1 a.m. last night, they should be just fine.