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Started upgrading the ford with the help of a gentleman who likes to be called ‘Hoppy’. He came down Thursday with a small tracked excavator where he rented from an Excavator for Rent service and did a good amount of the excavating and trimming down of both banks. Unfortunately it blew a seal when he was trying to get a large boulder moved out of the way. Today he showed up bright and early with his back-hoe loader.

Here is what the ford looked like at the beginning of the day. About half way through the day Hoppy asked if I could get on my tractor and help bucket the gravel down to the ford. The ford is about a half mile from where the gravel was dumped, the closest the dump truck operator dared to get lest he get stuck.

Bucket after bucket, we finally got the near bank stabilized and the holes in the stream bed filled in to the point where I took this picture from the far side looking back.

The last picture below is what the ford looked like at the end of the day. Hoppy will be coming back with his repaired tracked loader and will smooth out some final gravel, etc. Hopefully this will hold over the coming months, I’m planning to move down more rock from various piles around the farm which should even further stabilize the stream bed and banks. Only time will tell, hopefully the first time I try it out in the coming weeks I won’t get stuck.

So you might be asking why I want to be able to cross Mine Run ? On the other side I own about 68 acres of timber which has numerous rough roads, deer stands, and civil war era bunkers from the 1863 Mine Run Campaign. I want to be able to get over there in my ATV, do a little metal detecting with the kids, and some hunting this coming fall.