Multiple Major Projects

Whew, Dave has been busy with several major projects.  He has been working hard for the past couple of weeks preparing the site for the dome.   After stripping the topsoil he had several huge piles of topsoil.  Since the south side of the new show jumping arena drops off significantly Dave hauled numerous loads of topsoil to the show jumping ring.  The borrowed dump trailer couldn't manage to dump a full load  so it took almost twice as many trips to get enough topsoil to build up a berm.  But the time and effort will be well worth it when we get the first BIG rain and the footing doesn't get washed away.

Now it was time to get the ring finished.  The drainage trenches that Dave dug in the middle of the winter sometime were now pushed back and Dave did a final rough grading before Dave Frey came out with the the magic machine; the lazer grader.  A really slick machine that uses a lazer level to adjust the grader.  My Dave had done a pretty good job with the rough grading that it only took Dave Frey about and hour and a half to finish the job ;)  Over the weekend Dave Frey came back with a vibrating roller to compact the base.  This week we get the sand and except for building the banks and landscaping the arena will be done.

The Berm

The Lazer Grader

Dave & Dave riding the vibrating roller

Looking from the NW corner to the SE.  Last pic before the sand!!

 Speaking of the banks (which will be used for the NEW Jumper Derby in Oct) there will be a two smaller banks at the east end of the ring, a one stride step up for Training in the middle and bounce banks on the west end.  I had wanted the one stride to come into the ring about 12' so you could also go up and across the bank.  Dave was adamantly against it until he discovered that the pesky little wet spot was actually a spring!  He put a tile in and it's doing a good job of taking the water away, but he decided that putting a bank on top of it might be a better solution ;)  Since Dave has to return the dump trailer soon and he has a lot of subsoil to get ride of, he spent the afternoon hauling dirt to where we're going to need fill for the banks.  I have no idea if those are going to be done before the event or not but at least the fill dirt will be there when we're ready ;)

As you may recall, we put in a tile line to help dry out the area near the ditches.  To further improve the footing in the area Dave brought over some topsoil to bring up the ground even more.  Unfortunately the top soil was loaded with stones which took a few hours to pick up.  I felt like I was cleaning a giant outdoor stall picking out stones with a pitchfork!

The sand will be delivered this week and Dave hopefully will  finish prepping the site for the dome wall so that can get poured the end of the month and between all of that we have a horse trials to get ready for ;)

Prepping the dome site by digging the subsoil and moving it down the hill to level the area

Stay tuned for more details on these and other projects on the farm.

Jackie

Site Prep for the "Dome"

The mild winter and early spring has us a little ahead of schedule on the "dome" project.  For those who are unfamiliar with the "dome" project; it's basically it's a 100' diameter fiberglass water treatment plant top that we bought last fall to make into a large covered round pen.  The only catch is we need a 10' cement wall to mount the dome to.

Dave has contacted several contractors and the cost of the cement wall was quite a bit more expensive than we had anticipated but when we got a bid for several thousand dollars less we decided we better jump on it before the price goes up. The contractors came out last week to check out the site and the dome and said that they could pour the wall by the end of April. Since the weather has been cooperative and it's going to be a major earth moving job; Dave started preparing the site this weekend.  The east end of the site has be lowered and have that dirt pushed to the west side to get the entire area level.  But before beginning to level the ground Dave had to strip all the top soil and pile it out of the way..

Sadie playing queen of the mountain ;)