September 10, 2008—Big deliveries in big trucks

The first big delivery that arrived at the site today was brought by us! Jim had picked up our fountain from the manufacturer yesterday and brought it up this morning. It was so heavy, that I had to drive up separately, and we had to move part of it to my car, because Jim’s car was so overloaded. Luckily, the granite guy was at the site and helped us unload.

The big, disc-like thing is the base. The upside-down funnel-shaped thing sits on top of the base and the large bowl goes on top of it. The smaller bowl in the back sits inside the large bowl and there is a bubbler finial that goes on top.

The downspouts have been installed and look wonderful. They will gradually turn brown.
Here is the one next to the guest bathroom window. This will drain the foyer level of the roof.
The kitchen appliances had been installed—sort of. Here is the dishwasher . . .
. . . the refrigerator . . .

. . . and, oops! The stove is still out in the aisle because the slot for it was too narrow. The granite guys made the counter about a quarter of an inch too wide on either side of the stove. It doesn’t seem like much but when you are talking about stone and steel, neither bends too well.

Dan from the stone fabricators was there to grind down that quarter inch so the stove would fit properly.

The washer and dryer were also installed, and wow, are they massive. Everyone has commented on how big our laundry room is, but now that these monsters are in, it is not big any longer. They will be moved closer to the sink cabinet shortly.

The second big delivery was:
3 yards of sand
3 tons of Arizona Buckskin Gold flagstone
24 yards of soil
6 pallets of field rock, 4 head-sized, 2 double-head

The first of the trucks arrived with 4 of the pallets of rock and two hoppers of sand and the coolest forklift I have ever seen—a 3-wheeler.

Here you see the driver unloading the first hopper of sand. The sand will go in the courtyard as a bed for the flagstone.

These hoppers are like a little mini-dump truck. They have a lever on the side that the driver can push to release the sand once he has it in position. This makes the sand very portable because you want to be able to take delivery as close as possible to your project.
We had set out a tarp in front of Jim’s office window to receive the sand.
Then he proceeded to move the rock pallets wherever I wanted them. I had figured on having to argue with the driver about this, but this company is all set up to put it wherever you want it and expects to do so—so no problem.

He managed to hike two of the pallets up the hill behind the house near the gully, right where we wanted them. We will use these stones to rip-rap up the gully where it has not been done yet. The rip-rap slows erosion and also slows the water. Silt gradually builds up between the rocks which in turn supports plant growth which further slows the water.

After unloading the four pallets of rock and the two hoppers of sand, he packed up his forklift and went back to the yard for the second load.

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