Project Journal

The Stone Age Ends When You Run Out of Stones
by Robert Fortunato on January 10th, 2011 No Comments

Our friend Ewen, from Scotland, wanted to know if we were going to pack up our “tree” (see Christmas Rocks! post), put it in the attic and pull it out again next year.  We had other plans for it…

Our High Water post explained why we want to keep the storm water on our property from running down the hill and polluting the ocean.  To do this we need to build drywells to collect the water so it can percolate back into the ground.

Building the drywells is pretty simple.  It just takes a lot of rock to fill the two 4’x4’x4’ holes we contemplated.  Our “tree” and the other rubble on site would be helpful, but we needed about a ton of pea gravel as well.   This is where seeing our current site as a salvage yard is helpful.  There happens to be about a ton of pea gravel on site – as part of the existing flat composite roofing material.

Robert and Carter made quick work of harvesting the gavel into piles and the rains cooperated in washing it off.  As you can see from the photos, a few simple diverter pipes and we are ready to feed the aquifer.

Savings in gravel costs – at least $400.  Savings in mining and transport of additional stone and keeping  the pea gravel on our roof from going into the landfill at demo time – priceless.

Cultivating

Harvesting 1

Harvesting 2

Planting 1

Planting 2


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