If I Had a Shovel

I would shovel in the morning
I would shovel in the evening
All over this land.

I got a shovel. A really big shovel. It’s a late ’70’s Case backhoe that spent years on an almond orchard in the Central Valley. It will make short work of cutting in driveways, maintaining fire breaks, digging a septic system, trenching for utilities, and eventually clearing building sites and digging my basement — once I learn to use the thing with any degree of skill. School starts now.

Although it works today, I do have some mechanical work to do, new tires, clearing up a couple of hydraulic ram leaks, brake maintenance, and minor electrical gremlins. It all seems pretty straightforward and I procured a factory service manual, of course. Just tradeoffs for getting a big, burly piece of equipment like this at an affordable price.

Friends Joe, Adam and I took delivery of the hoe midday on Saturday and by 8pm we had about 300′ of new driveway that was, if not smooth sailing, at least passable even in a passenger car. The home site, that I could only get to in 4-Low by a circuitous route before, is now an easy drive in. I’ll work on smoothing it out some more next time I get a work day up there. Sneak preview: that should be in about 2 weeks when we will be taking down a giant, recently-ish dead Western Red Cedar. Fingers crossed it’s still good lumber and not a giant carpenter ant nest…. Watch this space!!!