More wall work, warm weather (!?)

It's unexpectedly warm this winter, which helps the building process.  Still yet, we're waiting for the trusses to be delivered.  I'm predicting it now, once they come, winter will rear is cold ugly head and slow down construction.  In the mean time, Great Oaks is still plugging away at our phase 1 landscape implementation.

   More recycled concrete aggregate was delivered this week and placed next to the driveway.  That's good since last time, they dumped it in an area, while unused, still didn't belong to us.  I'll probably need to reseed a lot of the court in the spring time.  There's still a good pile up at the house, so this is probably for the street retaining boulder wall.

    The driveway is completely blocked with these huge boulders.  I wasn't sure how big they were going to be.  Looking around the neighborhood, I've seen sizes range from bowling balls to large beach balls.  These are definitely large than those, most ranging between 2-3 ft in diameter.  I would have loved to hear the sound and feel the rumble when the truck dumped these off.  Maybe this will stop my nosy neighbors from investigating my build.  Probably not though.

    Here's a closer look at the size of these boulders.  I wear a size 12 for reference.  It's tough to determine the stone compositions, especially since I don't have much knowledge in minerals.  I can say that they aren't all granite.

    Here's the approach to the house.  Looks like a good number of stones are gone from the side.  That or they were just moved around a bit.  Some of then exhibit signs of manipulation.  I saw what looked like drill holes in them so they could be split.  Since everything is thawing out, the driveway was pretty muddy and soft in some spots.  The crushed concrete aggregate laid down in the deeper trenches definitely helped with walking back there.  I don't think I'll be driving it until the crushed limestone is laid.  Too much worry about puncturing  a tire.

    The pallet of Rosetta stone steps was moved closer the wall and spread out a bit.  There were some pieces up on the higher tier too so I think they were stepping out how they would be installed.  The mini excavator and bobcat were still there.  I think they move the stones with the bobcat and attached fork, then somehow place the stones with the excavator.  I should take a half day and shoot out there to see how they do it.  Might be fun to watch.

    Here are the two tiers roughly laid out.  You can see some of the wall constructed in the left of the frame.  The big stone in the middle is a Rosetta stone.  The stake on the right of the frame is where the crescent boulder stone wall will start.  There's a rebar stake in the ground on the left, which I think is where the stairs will land.  The highest dirt level is final driveway grade.

    Here's what has been constructed so far.  Last weekend, just the two stones on the bottom left were placed and the limestone bed was compacted in for the rest of the wall.  It seems like fitting and cutting the pieces to fit is time consuming.  They'll also need to cut and fit pieces near the house, which should be interesting since we don't have our final material on the house yet.  There won't be anything below the brick ledge but the face with the gas meter will have the granite cobblestone.

    Just a farther perspective on thew all.  The upper wall curves away from the lower wall to provide some planting space, so basically the dirt you see above the current wall will be stone.  It's about an eight foot drop, so it's nice to have two tiers.  As always, I can't wait to see it completed.

    You can see the separation fabric here covering what is probably the crushed AA aggregate and drainage pipe.  I didn't see any of the crushed concrete so I'm not sure how much is in there, or where the drain pipe will come to sunlight.  It's obviously not coming through the wall yet.

    If you look closely, you might be able to see paint marks on the ground, plotting out the top wall path.  The large stone in the middle is the Rosetta step, but I think it's going to be placed just to side of where it is now.  The wall takes a turn in towards the step to form the sides of the stairs.  The black landscape fabric kind of mimics where that turn will be.  There's supposed to be a few feet between the crescent shaped wall (visible wood stake) and the stone wall and it looks like it's going to be close.

    Here's where they determined the center of the driveway will be.  Actually, I think this is the center of the circle.  There were paint markers in a slight circular pattern up near the stairs to the house too so they were probably plotting out where the top of the steps will go.  This whole area was very soft.  I think they moved some of the dirt to the concrete wall as well, because it looks much more finished than last time.

   All the dirt piles have been removed from the front of the house, so there should be enough room for the truss crane and trailers to move in when they get here.  The only think I'm not sure about is how they'll work around each other since the street boulder wall will need to be installed, occupying some of the driveway.  Also, Great Oaks will probably need to work from "above" some times too so it seems like they'll be stepping on each others toes a bit.  I'll have to shoot an email to Bob Porter and make sure room will be available and see if he's still on his projected schedule.  If this is how much they can get done in one week, I'm estimating three more weeks of landscaping work left. before they're done.