Finish Grading cont...
My good friend Rich DiBernardo was able to loan me his Bobcat for a while. His machine wasn't pretty, but it would work and the price was right. The difficult task would be getting the machine from Pearl River, NY. Because of its weight, a regular landscape trailer would not be safe enough. I got help from Al Romano, he has a truck and heavy duty Bobcat trailer. It was a 5 hour ordeal one night to get it.
The next hurdle was actually getting the dirt delivered. Prices are theoretical until the stuff is actually on site. Messercola, the excavator, doesn't actually have the dirt, but when he has a job, he has to move it around. Sometimes it is really rocky, but I have enough rocks. So, the $70 per load is nice, but subject to availability. The clock was ticking on the return of the Bobcat, so I started looking into other options. Oranato Construction (so called dirt guy) had really nice screened topsoil, but it was $600 for a load. He also had B grade stuff for $400. I had on of each delivered. Meanwhile, Messercola comes up with 2 loads of nicer stuff for $150 each, and 3 loads @ $75 each.
The time was running out on the bobcat, it had to be returned on Sunday night, so I had from Thursday to Sunday to get the job done. I had wanted to visit my friends at the 24 hour Allamuchy mountain bike race that weekend, but I never made it.
Pete Rebovich Sr. operated the Bobcat on Thursday, I operated the shovel and rake. Friday I had a worker help while I operated the machine. By midday Bobby had hemophilia. A severe hydraulic leak was pissing fluid faster than I could fill it. Bobby was done, but I still had huge dirt piles to deal with. Taylor Rental delivered their machine by 3:30 on Friday for a 1 day rental, Saturday. By Sunday, the job was completed as far as I could. It took 7 loads and I completed about 2/3 of the grading plan. Areas near the house were done first, and near the end it slopes more than the plan. It will probably take another 5 trucks to complete sometime in the future, but it is good enough for now.
I also had 20 tons of stone delivered to start the trail to the back of the property
