The Heavy Lifting

My contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner is next to nothing; I set the table, keep everyone’s glass full, and try to stay out of the way.  Cooking this dinner is an intense business.  We did a joint dinner with friends; Fred delivered a fresh 25 pound turkey, which he had brined and air cooled for the previous 24 hours, for Buck to cook.  I can’t tell you one thing regarding this process, except to say that dealing with twenty five pounds of turkey involved a lot of heavy lifting. 

In my business, there are machines that are engineered to do the heavy lifting. Though my crew can handle a lot, there are those projects which could not be done efficiently without the help of machines. Two landscape projects of considerable scope and size need finishing before we loose our working weather. The first phase of this project-the installation of a new driveway. The original drive, set much too low, flooded with every rain.  The drivecourt was set some six inches above grade; water draining off the drivecourt was finding its way to the basement of the house. 

Given that a new driveway was a necessity, I suggested an alternate location that would provide a great view of the lake and property, and gracefully deposit guests at the front door.  A large tree in very poor condition would come down.  As the driveway would come through this area with eight inches of road gravel and decomposed granite, an oversized stump grinder was used to remove the top 14 inches of stump. There is no digging out the stump of a tree this size; nature intended that the forty feet above ground would have a solid foundation. This large four wheeled machine is designed to power a giant blade, that sweeps back and forth over the stump, chewing up and spewing out the bits.   

The original drivecourt, partly hand made brick pavers from the early twentieth century, and asphalt, needed complete removal, so as to lower the grade around the house. This excavator makes two days work of this big job.  A front end loader collected the intact bricks, so they could be stacked on pallets for use in the new drive, and later dumped the asphalt into a truck for removal from the property.  Was I fascinated by steamshovels as a child-absolutely. 

At some point concrete was added to the existing drive.  As the house is a long distance from the street, any guest parking had to be provided for on the property. As a driveway is not something one takes out on a whim, and redoes, if there is a need for more parking, the add on was just that-an add on.  This machine cuts concrete; as the blade turns, a spray of water keeps the blade from overheating.  I understand little about how machines work, but how this works made a monumental job possible.   

In conjunction with a new driveway, an asphalt go-cart track.  I will admit, this is my first.  I had my clients drive the proposed drive and cart path many times.  Once any driving surface is done, its not easy to make changes. Over a period of four days, we tuned up the final design.  This machine, rolling back and forth over the freshly laid asphalt, is solely intended to compact the oily mixture into a tough and durable surface.  You can tell from all the steam we are in a race aginst the cold weather.  Asphalt plants typically close the end of October; our late fall weather has been unseasonably warm.

The particulate asphalt is hot, and set with this machine.  I have no idea what drove the design, but it enables the two operators to lay out a layer of asphalt in the desired width, at a consistent thickness.  Bush Brothers Asphalt is just that-five brothers who quote, install and finish driveways, parking lots, roads-and in this case, a driving course.

Buck builds things from steel; much of what he builds is impossibly unwieldy and heavy.  He has another pair of hands that enables him to position and move material, how, where and when he needs it.  A bridge crane, affixed to an overhead track, can pick up 5 tons worth of any material he needs moved at a time.  A control gauge at the floor level enables him to move materials up and down-and finally out.  His eyes are always on the object he is moving, not on those buttons.  An object of great size and weight he moves with great attention and respect.  Machine operators are as much a marvel as the machines themselves.

It would have taken an army to move this steel sculpture from the shop onto this trailer-another machine that enables us to move big things big distances. I have utmost respect for those people who identify what work needs doing, and  design and build the machines which accomplish that. I greatly appreciate that these people- the designers,  the manufacturers who make machines, and the operators who drive them, make it possible for me to work.