How to build a yurt platform: part 3

After running the 12" auger through all the holes, we took an unplanned break. The flu ran through the family, each person in turn, taking over a month until we were all recovered. Then we realized that fixing up a few things in the RV was more urgent than the yurt.

Meanwhile, it rained. And rained. Some of the holes had good drainage, while others filled with water and held that water well. What to do?

Feeling an urge to get the yurt done already, I rented a Toro Dingo with a 24" auger. I figured this would get all the holes done, once and for all, and we could make some progress.

One the holes were dug, it was time to buy some gravel. The plan here was to fill the bottom of each hole with coarse gravel, to provide a strong, stable base below the frost line. I went to a local gravel pit, which was enormous! These guys also do concrete and excavating. The trucks driving around me were all dump trucks, and I just had my pickup. Would they sell to me?

I walked in to the office, and said "I'd like to buy a little gravel, just a pickup truck load. Do you do that?" They answered, "Yes, it's be $16.33." But I hadn't told them what kind of gravel yet, and how much I wanted in my truck. No matter, same price.

I was to tell the guy in the loader what I wanted, and he'd put it in the truck. Whatever I wanted, however much I wanted. The loader was huge, and the guy was in a cab way above me. I told him I wanted inch and a quarter. He picked up rock from a pile in just one corner of his bucket, and poured it in to the truck bed. He was careful to spread it evenly across the bed, and didn't come close to breaking a window (thanks!).

Sadly, it was the wrong rock. It was smooth river rock for drainage. I didn't realize this until it was already in the truck. No good way to get it out. So I took it home to see what I could do with it.

As I pulled on to the road and got up to speed, the truck started to weave. Scary! All that weight in the back, but all the steering happening in the front, and it wouldn't track a straight line above 35mph. Since the trip back required a few miles on a 50mph highway, I periodically pulled over to let traffic get by.

On the way back I stopped at the rental place and picked up the loader bucket for the Dingo, to move the gravel around.

I picked up a scoop of gravel from the truck and dropped it in the hole, but it wouldn't tamp. I tried adding some 3/4" minus crushed gravel to lock it together, but it didn't help. Eventually I put the auger back on the Dingo and dug out the slurry of mud and drain rock from the holes I had experimented.

What to do with all this rock, occupying my truck, with no purpose? I attached the loader bucket to the Dingo again, and spread it as a mud-free path to the door of the RV. That worked out nicely. The Dingo couldn't reach deeply in to the bed, though, so I had to switch to hand shoveling. The rest of the rock ended up in a pile out of the way, for some future project. My poor software programmer's body was tired after that!

I vowed not to get a full truckload of gravel again, but my carpenter pointed out that a full load was not enough for the job, especially with the larger holes we now had (24" diameter, instead of 18" square).

I returned the Dingo and took some time to consider the next steps.