Fixing an old rutted out road

This old road was once used for logging many years ago to clear cut parts of the forest near by, though it has been over a decade and large ruts have formed. This has made the road mostly impassible by vehicle. We decided to restore it so we can once again take vehicles down this road. This required us to get a delivery of large sized gravel rocks, and then we brought the skid steer over to move it around into the ditches and ruts that have formed. This is caused by years of rainfall and erosion.

The Kabota SVL 65-2 is a great skidsteer and was very useful for this task of moving rocks into the ditches and ruts that have formed.

One part of the road is accessible but the other side is not. So we will move these large rocks back behind the road and in the front until we can get all the way through.

These ruts are around a foot deep, and only getting worse with every rain. That is how they formed in the first place. So we use large rocks to fill them in, and then will follow up with a top dressing of smaller gravel.

A trucking company went to a local limestone quarry and picked me up a truckload of it. They dumped it as far as possible on the road as was safe. Then we use the heavy machinery to move it.

These are not your normal sized driveway gravel, these large rocks are meant to fill in voids.

It was fun watching my foreman scoop them up and move them into the ditches. Really glad we did not need to do this by hand.

He goes back and forth on the good road and moved rocks until the road was completely passable.

All and all this took us about two hours to do, and once we add some fresh gravel to the top this road should last a very long time.

Collecting and pouring in the rocks has this really nice sound to it.. Hard to explain but it was fun to watch and listen him scooping them all up.

Each bucket load would fill in large areas of the ruts.

While he worked on the road, I collected firewood. Walking through the forest I looked for dead trees, or logs laying on the ground.

Found many small piles, and over the two hours I collected much of it.

I really love my pickup truck, it has been a great tool to have out here.

Loading up the truck with lots of firewood for the wood furnace.

Just about all full and time to return to the homestead. We will use chainsaws and saw zalls to cut up all the wood and store it, or possibly use it right away. Since its all dry wood its good to go.

The rutted out road is finally filled in, and just about complete. Will have the trucking company bring another load of smaller gravel to fill in and cover everything else.

Step by step, we get this homestead all fixed up. Some things are lower priority than others, like this road we have been talking about fixing since we first saw it. But now we are getting to those repairs and its another thing done on the farm.