Driveway build

We had done most of the clearing and hauling by just driving through the ditch for the first couple years.  I wanted to start getting a driveway going to make access easier, spread some of the costs out, and give it more time to settle and compact, so in the fall of 2011, we had an excavator put in the driveway from the road to the top of the hill.  This required digging up a bunch of large stumps and pushing around a lot of dirt and fill, which is way more than the tractor was capable of doing (especially in any reasonable time).

So here was the early drive through the ditch path, with the actual driveway path staked out.

Th equipment the excavator brought to do the driveway

And the results after a couple days of work

We planted some grass and covered it with hay to help erosion issues.

Here you can see a view from Google maps satellite view of the driveway the next spring (2012).  The path going straight down from the cul-de-sac is our driveway.  You can see the clearing a bit too.