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Open up, air out, mow the lawn and get the burgers on. Always like to open up to start our season especially when winter has been kind to our homestead.
   
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This is the year we made the decision to complete graveling our road. We hauled some gravel last season and that went well, except I was a bit concerned about the health of the trucks tires. Bit the bullet right off and it was new tires all around. Hated to hand over the $2,800 but that bill did include filling both propane tanks (which normally gives me about 10 loads).
However, our biggest outlay for 2017 occurred on June 20th when we took delivery of our brand new BX25D-1 23 HP Diesel 4 WD with Backhoe, Loader Bucket and Rear Blade. Total outlay was $25,500, but with the high demand for quality acreage tractors we weren't too concerned about recovering most of this expenditure at some later date.
So the gravelling began. By now I was an old hand at loading, delivering and spreading gravel. Done right and with the tailgate chains set to allow a gradual even spread while dumping, 6 out of 10 loads didn't even need touch ups after. In 3 out of 10 loads we would have to do some minor grading with the Kubota. And, for different reasons, 1 out of 10 loads would require extensive spreading and redistribution with the little tractor.
    
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Love my new tractor. It starts and runs flawlessly, with more actual power than the 23 hp would indicate. The buckets capacity is 1/4 yard and it can handle 700 lbs. Even with this limited capacity, it was worlds better than moving dirt and gravel by hand. The rear blade could do a rough grade but it quickly became obvious a float of some kind would do a better job of finishing a gravel topping. Another project for another time.
   
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The dump box holds 8 yards of gravel. After a few days of hauling we had spread 38 loads. The road was now what I considered 4 season. There was enough gravel down along its 1 1/4 mile length that even a heavy rain wouldn't stop us from driving in safely, securely and comfortably.
   
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Lee even liked operating the new tractor. And we installed a canopy which gave the operator some degree of protection from rain and the sun.
   
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One little quirk of the gravel truck both Glenn and I experienced early on in the game was that the truck liked to do wheelies. With a full load, if you raised the box too high too quickly without releasing the tailgate, the front end of the truck would lift about 3 feet. Quite the experience when the truck would start to rise and you'd lose your ability to steer. Once you were in the air the only way down was to release the gate and keep the truck rolling forward while losing some of your load. Trouble was you were likely stalled by then and all you could do was wait for the front end to come crashing down. The pictures below were caught on a game cam Glenn had put by his gate when he had borrowed the truck to do a bit of roadwork on his place.
   
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One great benefit of our lifestyle up at the farm was that you could turn kids loose without too much concern. That's Glenn's 7 year-old granddaughter taking a side by side for a spin.
A couple of years earlier, something had burrowed under my shed, chewed a big hole through its wooden floor and gnawed the edges of all the sheds shelves. Early on we determined it must have been a woodchuck but the little nuisance remained out-of-sight and unseen. Finally I set up a game cam overlooking the burrow hole and caught the little bugger out and about. For all my best effort with a live trap and Star's constant patrolling we haven't been able to catch the rodent.
   
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Once again we were fortunate to draw an early season bull moose tag. We did connect early in the hunt on one of Glenn's alfalfa pastures. .A quick cell call to Glenn's son Brandon and we had a picker truck on location within 20 minutes. There is just no better way to process an animal the size of a northern Alberta moose. After the trucks arrival, it took a half an hour from unsheathing the knives to washing up.
     
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