Paving progress pictures

Retaining wall post being set where our driveway meets the road

I'll have to measure, but there more than 200 feet of wall to keep the landslide tide back

The parking area is being graded for water drainage

I'm told we are paving approximately 2800 square feet of hillside

Using gravel along the borders, and will likely be adding retaining walls up the hillside to reduce erosion, and increase our landscaping and garden areas

Soon I can wash my car without the dog turning himself into a mud ball

Paver stones, which were baked to order for our site, arriving pallet after pallet

They're cutting several of the stones so that they can lay the pavers like cobblestone

Pavers the way

Work has started on our driveway!

When we found our hillside hut, there wasn't even clearance enough for a small car to make it up the driveway (archive: First Projects).

I can already visualize the finalized project, but I'm guessing it will be three times as good looking in reality. Work includes:

• widening the driveway to 11 feet so that the fire department will finally (in the entire history of the house) grant approval and permit for habitability. Strange, I know, but I'm told by the county that it was never acquired, not that it really matters to them. But it will lower our insurance premium.
• adding more than 200 feet of retaining walls. Neighbors told us the previous owners would park in the turnouts below the house because they feared a landslide trapping them in during the rainy seasons. A bit extreme, but not unwarranted considering the driveway's condition.
• grading the entire parking area and driveway and adding drainage for optimum water redirection and management.
• repairing and repaving the 1/10 mile driveway with asphalt.
• installing up to 2,800 sq. ft. of paver stones for the parking area, which I'm told last longer, require less maintenance, environmentally sound drainage, and even allow access to our utility lines buried underneath without major issues. 

Hearts

Found a pair a hearts carved into the rocky back of the creek during a hike.

Trailblazing on the Zayante Creek

As a boy, I spent much of my time on the Little Stillwater Creek that runs through our family farm's acreage. While my father was on the tractor plowing the fields, I was methodically creating and maintaining a series of trails along the creek. With these few acres of my own, old habits are blazing anew.

Wonderful thing about trailblazing in my neck of the woods: other humans, and even the wildlife, have already created most of the paths.

Cougar paw rock at the creek bed junction for Zayante Creek and the Redwoods Estates inlet

Fern bank

Zayante fjords

Grooves with the flow

Tank pool—part I

Falling down doesn't necessarily mean it's the end if you grow from it.

Tank pool—part II

Creekside seat

Good trail, but I rank parts as strenuous and not for the meek, or well dressed. 

Neighbors

Bear welcome

Santa gnomes

Near daily, I trek through the small community of Zayante as I head toward Felton for lunch and supplies. Since the Christmas holiday season, two neighbors have had predominately situated Santa gnomes on either side of the road I travel.

It started causally enough. At first they were merely tacky decorations. Then one neighbor started to dress up their gnome. And then the other. As Valentine's Day approached, one was the specter of death. The other, with giant heart on sleeve, eventually wooed his friend into a make-out session on one side of the road for a few days. St. Patrick's Day was fun with the gnomes dressed in green goggles, mugs, hats, and scarves. Admittedly, driving through Zayante has become an anticipated highlight to my day so that I may see the next metamorphosis.

So today I decided to contribute anonymously.

Contributed the hat with rabbit ears, but I'm still waiting for the strap-on nose to arrive.

The chicken outfit

My "thank you" note to the neighbors for the entertainment