The Driveway Begins

Well its time to put the driveway in. I met with Tim, Keith, and the person that we thought was going to clear the property and build the driveway back in March. Well, when we received the bid lets say we were all in shock. So Tim started looking for alternatives. And he was successful! He found this company that could just mulch every tree and bush on the property and do it quickly. We thought we were set. Then no contact, nothing. Now we couldn't delay because we had already placed the order for the floor joists. We placed them in advance because of the required lead time. There's a building boom in Florida such that the east coast suppliers are doing jobs for the west coat builders because the west coast suppliers can't meet the demand! Which means my little job doesn't mean a lot to them. So we are trying to get things going the best we can. So Tim found another company to root rake (remove any plant/tree parts from the driveway) the driveway and to pull up the trees and clear the house pad etc. These guys were maniacs, or another way to say it, they were very efficient doing their thing! The drive was root raked in less than a day and then they returned the second day since they had a cancellation and continued working on the property. Once they are done clearing the job site of trees and bushes, they will come back and grind as much as they can, leaving only the really big tree trunks. Which will be put into 30 yard dumpsters and hauled away. So if all goes well, by next weekend (the 11th or 12th of May) the driveway will be in (10 loads of Coquina rock) and the clearing will be finished. And the building permit will be re-submitted by this Friday and so hopefully it will be Ok'd in a week to ten days. Just about when I'll be arriving from NOLA for the summer! The following are the photos during the first day of working on the driveway.

The driveway looking back East. See the sign?

The house will be where the bobcat is working. Look at previous posts to see what it originally looked like.

Most of this should be ground up making mulch.

 

Taking care of business!

Notice the palm tree lying on its side. Tim said it took them about 45 secs to pop it out of the ground!

So I knew I had rattle snakes on the property, coexisting with the tortoises. But now I find out I also have coral snakes on the property! This one is fairly large! I hate to kill them but I might have to purchase a .22 pistol and use rat shot just to be on the safe side.

The driveway base will be made from Coquina rock.

Coquina, pronounced co-kee-na, is a type of sedimentary rock found in Florida. Although it's not limited to being found only in Florida, there is a lot of it around because "The end of the Pleistocene Era (1.8 million years ago-approx 11,550 years ago) corresponds with the retreat of the last continental glacier. Florida itself, and its landmass, was rising from the sea, and Coquina rock began forming along a long portion of Florida's East Coast." It is formed from "incompletely consolidated sedimentary rock...formed of billions of small clam-like seashell, called Coquina, or cockleshell. Overall composition of most Coquina rock is a mixture of these and other shells"