54 Comments on “Another Thing I Do You Probably Don’t”

1. It looks like he is doing a really nice job.

2. Come to think of it, I never have paid some dude to re-gravel your driveway.

3. Hopefully, with that expanse of grass, you also mow with a riding mower – another thing I don’t do.

4. I bought your books; therefore, I sort of paid this guy to re-gravel your driveway (unless this is coming out of Krissy’s money or Athena’s allowance). He’d better do a good job, and please remind him that I have very high standards and expectations when it comes to this sort of thing.

   The thing is, I think your driveway is longer than the street I live on.

   Still… How cool is it to see a big, honkin’ dump-truck in your drive, man?

5. Jemaleddin:

   Well, I wish you would. Two loads of rock ain’t cheap.

   Jeri:

   I don’t but my father-in-law does.

6. You’re fortunate that it’s only one truck wide.

7. Yeah, but did you ever wonder what happens to the old gravel? Where does it go? Evaporation? Sublimation. Gravel thieves? Personally, if my drive is any indicator, the gravel slowly escapes into the grass, heading slug-like for the woods.

   And, Jeri, Scalzi makes his father in law mow the lawn, by hand, with fingernail clippers.

8. Dan prolly paid for three of those rocks so make sure they are in the right place. I bet Mr Scalzi doesn’t mow that grass. He has sheep for that.

9. Please take the rocks I bought and carefully place them toward the center of the drive. That way they won’t be constantly run over by tires. Thank you very much.

10. Actually, yes, I do do this – for my own driveway, of course. In fact, I did this two years ago and will be doing it again in Fall of 2008.

    Jim W: in my case, inaddition to the gravel getting gradually kicked off into the grass and ground into the dirt by traffic, I also find piles of gravel where the snow is plowed during the winter.

11. Maybe this is a stupid question, but where does the old gravel go?

12. Growing up we had a gravel driveway on a hill – I distinctly remember being 5 years old, helping shovel gravel in a driving thunderstorm and carry it back up to the top of the hill so it wouldn’t all wash away in the rain. Those were the good ole days. Funny, I don’t recall ever getting a new load of gravel for it, though….

13. Hmmm? #26 crushed limestone?

14. So how many copies of OMW will I have to purchase to cover two trucks of gravel? ‘Cause I think I can afford 2 this month…

15. So does the second load go over the first? If they’re sequential, is there a rake or shovel involved to get a nice, seamless transition between load one and load two? Inquiring minds want to know.

    We had a gravel thing going in our front garden for a while. We eventually figured out that ground cloth under the gravel kept it from getting weedy.ground in, but something tells me that wouldn’t be the best option for a driveway. Enjoy your oh-so-delightful new gravel.

16. Maybe not, but I have been on the wrong end of both shovel and rake re-graveling my parent’s driveway. This combined with the seemingly endless hours of picking up rocks from the back forty helped to form an early sense of irony.

17. There was a time I was waiting for 22 yards of gravel to be delivered for my driveway when a couple of Mormon missionaries showed up on my front porch. They had just started their pitch when the gravel truck pulled into the driveway, its big diesel engine roaring and the rocks loudly pouring out the back. They shouted above the noise that they would come back, but they never did.

18. Echo that I too have participated in paying some dude to re-gravel your driveway. ;-)

    Green acres is the place to be
    Farm living is the life for me!

    Just playin’ Six Degrees of Paris Hilton….

19. Uh oh. NOW I’m going to Hell.

20. I’ve had to do that as well, although usually we only get one load at a time. Also, I notice that they’re spreading it for you. I usually end up spending a couple of hours in cold wind raking it into place.

    Granted, I live in New Mexico though, so I don’t have to worry about the riding lawnmower thing. Grass is rarely green out here.

21. John, is that a Mack truck, by any chance?

22. Does a two-load driveway mean you have enough privacy to shoot off fireworks and garden naked? (I recommend not combining the two.) If so, well done.

23. Well, I would do that, but my condo association would have a cow if I dumped gravel on their nice, clean asphalt.

24. Had to do it until two years ago, for a shared driveway. Lisa L is correct. You put the gravel down in, say, June, then in February a snow plow comes and pushes a substantial amount of it onto your devil’s strip (“tree lawn” for you non-northeast Ohioans who don’t talk English good). The remaining gravel gets mushed down over time by cars and rain and the GWOT. Worms probably drag some down, down to fashion wonderous worm cathedrals.

    The next year (or two) you do it all over or your drive becomes a grooved path of compacted rock dust with a mohawk of weeds running up the middle. Looks real nice. But the gravel’s still cheaper than concrete!

25. Well, I would do that, but my condo association would have a cow if I dumped gravel on their nice, clean asphalt.

    Yeah, they usually have a rule prohibiting naked gardening too. Tyrants.

26. The guy who owned our house before we did evidently redid one of the bathrooms at some point in the past. Every spring we have a bunch of 1″X1″ blue tiles come to the surface in our backyard. Would you like me to save them up toward the next graveling? They’d make a pretty accent, don’t you think?

27. …where’s all the snow??

28. Aintcher got any snow out there in Ohiyer?

29. Folks, John lives in southern Ohio. Near the Miami river. Likely the truck driver was wearing flip-flops and a wife-beater today.

30. The in laws have a 3 loads gravel driveway with s curves sitting on clay and under the clay is glacial till and volcanic ash & pumice deposits that gets annual frost heaves, -30C winter to 5C spring with rain; the bog down effect is about 3 feet deep which can eat your car.

31. The next year (or two) you do it all over or your drive becomes a grooved path of compacted rock dust with a mohawk of weeds running up the middle. Looks real nice. But the gravel’s still cheaper than concrete!

    May be cheaper, but we were delighted when my parents blacktopped their driveway. Shoveling a gravel driveway is horrible–and since their driveway is pretty steep, it was kinda necessary.

32. I don’t have to do that. In fact, I get paid to load trucks with gravel. Except, not gravel so much as boulders, and not gravel trucks but rock trucks. I load them with a shovel but a big huge power shovel, not a hand shovel.

33. It took 4 truckloads of roadbase to do my driveway this fall. It wasn’t the length so much as the buffalo wallows. Some of those holes were big enough to eat Volkswagens.

34. > Yeah, they usually have a rule prohibiting naked gardening too.

    If they didn’t before, they did after I moved in. Barstids.

35. # Rembrant Says:
    December 27th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

    Dan prolly paid for three of those rocks so make sure they are in the right place.

    Well, now that you bring it up, could you place those rocks of mine somewhere toward the middle of the driveway, John? Make sure they’re not too close to the road since I don’t want to be swept away by a snowplow, but I also don’t want to be too close to the house so as to impose on your life or anything. My stones aren’t rude, ya know.

    Oh! And if you could find a spot in the shade, that would be choice. After all, I tend to burn if I’m left lying in the driveway all day.

    So, remember: Not too close to the road. Not too close to the house, and preferably in the shade if possible.

    Thanks, John! You’re the best.

36. I suppose a 2-load gig is better than a 2-gig load.

37. Wow, Optimus Prime’s jobs have gotten pretty rough since the movie.

38. Living in South Louisiana, we use shell. Some of it is pretty fresh, let me tell you.

39. Could we get a wider shot that shows the deer and peacocks roaming your front lawn?

40. #39 Mike,

    More like Athena and her friends rampaging across the lawn. For it is the bounden duty of all nine year olds everywhere to create as much noise and havoc as possible so long as the sun shines and clouds drift by in the sky. It’s enough to wear out a border collie.

41. Once the gravel is put down, do you have someone put a binder on the driveway?
    Some of the better liquid binders made today are almost as good and long lasting as asphalt.
    A bit less expensive too.

42. True, but in the part of Kentucky where my family lives, they and their neighbors (who are mostly just more family; hey it’s Kentucky) have to periodically pay some nice chap to regravel their roads. Just another perk of life in the holler!

43. How often do you have to do that?

44. Every couple of years.

45. Mr. Scalzi, forgive me if this is beside the point, but who shovels that driveway?

    In Yellowknife I had to do that, as a kid…I remember that. It *sucked*.

46. I’m disappointed no one has made a LOLtruck of that photo yet.

47. #29 Jeff, it’s southwestern Ohio. And we wear flannel shirts with our flipflops this time of year.

48. Hehe to JJS and Adam Rakunas

49. “Kitteh littrz 4 bakun katz”

50. LOLTruck:

    “I’m in ur drivewaiz, hidin ur evidentz”

    And somebody bought you a couple of those rocks on my behalf, too, ’cause I found OMW and TGB under the Conspicuous Consumption Tree this year (and I have to say that while I haven’t read ’em yet, because I’m saving them to savor some day when I’m snowed in and my snowblower has gone off skiing or something, I did what I always do in bookstores, which is read the back cover blurb, then flip open randomly and read a couple pages, two or three times, and this looks like it’s gonna be wicked good fun and I’m almost sorry I didn’t buy the hardcover when it came out, but I’m cheap. And broke.)

51. If Athena plays basketball seriously, you should pave that flat and blacktop it.

52. I sure hope you have a plow, or a 4 wheel drive, I would hate to have to shovel that driveway :P

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