12-02-2004, 09:35 AM
Nate: I asked the same thing. Apparently it;s more complicated than that. Although one can simply drive a jeep or truck over a path and make ruts, knocking down the grass te problem here is that with 150 inches of rain a year and 9 feet of soil septh, what you get is mud. deep,, sinking quagmire of mud. You can wakk those paths but a vehicle weighs too much and will sink. A neighbor lost a tractor to a mudhole and after several days of trying to extract it (and nearly losing another vehicle) the insurance company settled and said "let it stay there".
The very top of the ground.. maybe an inch or two... crusts from the baking of the sun over the years. however, if you scrape even the very top off, you get mud and you sink. I didn't believe it, so of course had to try... Believe it!
Even laying in the base rock layer, one has to put weed mat down... mesh with little metal interweavings... 12 ft wide and contiguous for 300 ft to keep the base rocks from sinking. I guess as a bulk they slowly settle, so long as individual rocks can't sink down. It all goes back to Roman road building and depends on terrain. In Fern Forest, just 5 miles south of me, the lava layer is less than 6 inches under soil; terrible for growing things but great for buidling dirt roads... which they have everywhere!
It's all a learning adventure, and taken as a whole, I would rather have the expensive road and the soil for my orchards and such than not.
Mahalo for your interest and comments; you guys keep me going, my spirits up, my thinking cap on.
Pam
May you live in interesting times.
The very top of the ground.. maybe an inch or two... crusts from the baking of the sun over the years. however, if you scrape even the very top off, you get mud and you sink. I didn't believe it, so of course had to try... Believe it!
Even laying in the base rock layer, one has to put weed mat down... mesh with little metal interweavings... 12 ft wide and contiguous for 300 ft to keep the base rocks from sinking. I guess as a bulk they slowly settle, so long as individual rocks can't sink down. It all goes back to Roman road building and depends on terrain. In Fern Forest, just 5 miles south of me, the lava layer is less than 6 inches under soil; terrible for growing things but great for buidling dirt roads... which they have everywhere!
It's all a learning adventure, and taken as a whole, I would rather have the expensive road and the soil for my orchards and such than not.
Mahalo for your interest and comments; you guys keep me going, my spirits up, my thinking cap on.
PamMay you live in interesting times.
I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says
"Oh Crap, She's up!"
hit the floor each morning, the devil says
"Oh Crap, She's up!"