On Sunday, somebody destroyed Hick and Buddy's Badly Blacktopped Hill!!!
Can you believe it? Ten years of more of that blotchy blacktop, bumpy and uneven, but keeping the hill from washing out during heavy rains. The day after Hick and Buddy's handiwork was installed for FREE, one of the local denizens started badmouthing them. Well. I hope she enjoys the week of "smooth" driving she will have for now. Once we have a rain, that road is going to wash out. Just like it used to. A giant rut will form. Probably more than one. Oh, and even if the weather stays dry for a couple weeks, it won't be long before there are humps like a washboard, from people slowing down, then spinning their wheels going up the hill.
See there? It's not even gravel. They pried up the blacktop, and left a dirt road underneath. Dirt turns into MUD, you know, during a rain. I'm not saying Hick and Buddy's Badly Blacktopped Hill was perfect. Nor even average. But it was drivable. Didn't wash out.
There's the pile of broken blacktop. Most of it. Some ended up in our sinkhole, because Hick gave somebody permission to dump it there.
Not a good picture, but that's the view of our front sinkhole from our driveway. There's the ruts from the truck that backed up to dump the blacktop chunks. Poor clueless Hick! He says he is planning to fill in the sinkhole! That's not how it works. I'm pretty sure that sinkhole is a portal to a cave with a water system that feeds our well. If you drop something directly into the hole, you hear a splash. That's never going to get filled up! Anyhoo... there's the Freight Container Garage in the background, across the BARn field.
I know whoever decided to "fix" Hick and Buddy's Badly Blacktopped Hill meant well. But they didn't think it through. Nor did they consult Hick, who knows a little something about roads. He said they should have poured something on that blacktop, then lit it on fire. Maybe motor oil. I wasn't paying attention. Hick said that would have melted the blacktop, softening it. Then a load of gravel should have been poured on top. That would have stuck the gravel into the blacktop. The dirt would not have been exposed to erode with each rain.
That hill is going to be a mess when we get precipitation, and then freezing overnight resumes. It's not like we're out of winter yet.
Smartypants who did it should have his head examined!
ReplyDeleteHopefully, he's in great pain from patting himself on the back. Maybe he will spin out in the mud after the first hard rain, and scratch his vehicle on a tree.
DeleteFirst the mailboxes, now the blacktop. Is someone out to get you? Maybe it's time to move. To Sunny Arizona! Well not today. Or for the rest of the week. But we expect sun on Sunday!
ReplyDeleteNo can do! I need my daylight savings time! Somewhere, someone has a voodoo doll of Val, twisting the lower legs until the toes point backwards. Taping losing scratchers to that doll this week. Pounding a postage stamp with a mallet, and voicing a curse upon the roads to Val's house.
DeleteIdiots abound for sure. Burning the blacktop and adding gravel seems like a fine idea. But what will happen to that broken up blacktop now? Wil it just sit there forever and ever?
ReplyDeleteI imagine it will sit there until somebody asks Hick if they can dump it down our sinkhole! It's taking up room where we could pull over and let another car come up the hill, avoiding that tree on the right. Especially helpful during times of ice and snow, when you don't want the uphill vehicle to slow down or stop.
DeleteEven Spring rains can make that hazardous. Are there plans to put blacktop down now? There is a place on an interstate near here that developed a huge dip. This went on for a couple of years with the dip getting deeper. Then, two more developed. They did a huge repair, and two months later, the dip is coming again. Your lady complaining about the bad job might not have her problem solved even now. Be careful on that hill.
ReplyDeleteI want DST to last all year!
No plans for blacktop. It's expensive, and most people out here won't even chip in for loads of gravel! Hick and Buddy did the original blacktop for FREE, because that hill has always had a problem with washing out during rains.
DeleteBuddy doesn't live out here any more. He had a dump truck he drove as a side job, and was given some leftover blacktop at the end of a job. He called Hick and told him to get his tractor ready in a hurry, before that blacktop cooled off and hardened. They were not professional pavers, heh, heh! It was a lumpy job to start with. Over the years, it had developed a couple of holes that could have been filled in with gravel, and a side section that was crumbling away. Not perfect, but better than dirt!