Keep on Trucking.....

Looking out early yesterday afternoon and the invasion of trucks hadstarted.  The trucks are filled with very hot asphalt, an oil and gravel mix.  I counted at least 7 trucks out there lined up ready to back up to the machine that lays out the asphalt in to even layers of  a hot and smelly material. As they empty out the truck immediately takes off to go get more.

Engineers at Iowa State University design these machines for out Department of Transportation and eventually the machines are sold to other states all over the United States. It of course is computerized and buttons are pushed to determine depth of the material and speed. I can't decide if the machine which is attached to the dump truck is making the speed be controlled or if the truck is.  I am thinking the machine's computer determines how fast it it to move and the dump truck is in neutral gear.

 Having reread the information sheet about the schedule we will get a final finish coat over the first coat.  I hope it is thin as the asphalt is probably seven inches thick already and more will make it impossible for my car to get up onto the road when I back out.  I did read that the  homeowner maybe out money to find gravel or whatever material to get the driveway connected to the street. We are not getting curbs so someone will have to bring in dirt to cover up those very uneven, zig zagged edges of the road.  I assume I will be planting grass to cover the dirt. The edge shouldn't be left as is or I will spend my summers weed eating along it.

I took a lot of photos out of the windows as all the machines surrounded the house making a lot of noise.  I did finally go outside and snapped some more pictures, just for fun.  Barney wasn't too scared with the noise but Button was really disturbed about one of the smaller roller machined that was traveling up and down the road.  He had to muster up a growl at that guy for some reason.  I guess it was small enough that he though he could handle it.  Our car sits across the street in a neighbor's driveway so it will be out of the way and so we can get out of the place when we want.  If they put another layer on today we will still be safe to drive the car.  If they don't fix my driveway I will have to go out and shovel back all the gravel and dirt to make a ramp between the road and my drive.

It was labelled to be a stargazer lily.  It doesn't look like my others but it definitely has the fragrance that a stargazer has.  I planted this two years ago and it didn't survive the weather last spring.   I am glad to see it up and blooming.  I don't understand the brown on the leaves.  It may have been the excess moisture but no other lilies have that.

It seems like a slow day for me. I am not grumpy but do seem lest interested in all that is going on today.  We have things to do and I should start the mowing process again.  Jelly making will happen but it was difficult to find the peckin that we needed.  We bought some and now we see that we only have half of what we need.  We will do what we can today with the ingredients we have and then we will return to the store one more time.  We were able to get 9 cups of juice from those cherries. If we were over achievers we could have had twice that amount but there is a limit to the amount of jelly that we need. The birds are really enjoying the cherries too.






We had a redish, yellowish evening yesterday caused by the smoke from the fires in Canada. It is covering us like a cloud.  It looks like a solar eclipse day as we have low light.  Last night we had an orange or redish moon.  Everyone was a lot silly about it but it was fun to see.  Barney and I were able to see it when we walked down the street last night.

Slow day or not, the day must go on.  We will make the best of it and the results will be what they will be.  I hear the roar of the trucks and machinery to the north of us, so I know we will be invaded by the truck aliens sometime soon.  I hope all are doing well and thanks for checking in today.