As a new homeowner I’ve had to become informed about some rather interesting things that: one, I didn’t know before; or two, had some knowledge of, but never thought would apply to home ownership. The Army doesn’t tell you that when you’re learning this stuff.

My bookends.

For example: As one of my special projects while in Afghanistan, I took on the responsibility of rebuilding the main entrance of our shared Afghan / American camp to include two very large steel reinforced gates, new reinforced walls surrounding them, guard posts both next to and at a standoff from the vehicle inspection point, and a rather massive amount of road improvement to make the area from the Kabul road to the Brigade Headquarters not only trafficable, but also presentable. I was perhaps motivated by my proximity to that gate while carrying between $15,000 and $50,000 (U.S. Currency) in my right cargo pocket (under my pistol, just so you know) as I went about my business buying parts and supplies for the Brigade. All told, I spent over $300,000 in just a few months, actual cash going through my hands, with the maximum single purchase being $2500 (Army spending rules, unlike the Special Forces guys we replaced who were dropping off bags of $250,000 at a time – no receipts necessary).

Home sweet Afghanistan, circa 2003.

What does this have to do with owning a home? Besides wishing that I had been allowed to “keep” some of that money for myself, I’m now faced with some severe landscaping challenges at my new home due to the previous owners never intending anyone to actually make it to the garage on anything larger than a goat. Now, while I do rather enjoy “narrow” and “steep” during the warmer months, Winter shall make this not only dangerous, but also impractical. Let us just imagine that LT has allowed me the right of visitation and I decide to pack heavy: My F-250 is 19 feet, 6 inches long. My box trailer is 24 feet long (with tongue). Add in the hitch and this monster is longer than a commercial bus… which is great for holding four bikes, but not for turning around unless I decide to go into the yard.

Not my truck, but the same model and size.

Oh, I forgot to mention that. The house is on one side, a rock wall on another, a sheer drop of ten feet on the third, and the yard doesn’t have a single flat spot anywhere (it’s all either up or down). Last time I took my trailer into the yard to turn around I scalped the yard for about 10 feet before the tandem axles actually touched down again. This isn’t healthy for either my yard or the trailer, and I doubt that come winter I’ll be able to do that and not get stuck (I’m just at the edge of Southern Michigan’s “lake effect” snow coming off Lake Michigan). I really wonder sometimes why they built the house with such poor access; there is only so much nature you can have if you can’t get to the house in the first place.

Come Winter, I’m not getting any company…

So, all of that training I received back at the beginning of my carrier, what once was called the “Scout Platoon Leader’s Course”, where we went page by page learning about route classification and the minimum radius of a curve that a vehicle of a certain size can turn without hitting the shoulder, not to mention all of the time walking the back woods of Fort Knox actually measuring percent grade of a slope by hand (take that all you Army Engineers), mix in Afghanistan for building, and Iraq for tearing down, and I’m all sorts of ready to make myself a expressway back into the 14 acres that I own.

But.

Renting a bulldozer is going to be expensive and messy. I know, I’ve used them before. Oh, and I’ll want to level the surface some more and maybe compact it. That’s going to cost, not to mention getting a couple dozen cubic yards of crushed limestone dumped, spread, and compacted as well. Without someone else to pay for this I might need to scale back my plans a bit, at least for a while. “Why a bulldozer,” you might ask? Oh, this is heavy work here. Pushing hundreds of cubic yards of sand, tree stumps, gravel, and rocks is no work for a tractor and a blade. Especially if you’re looking at cost-benefit and you pay for the rental of the item by the hour. This is where not having access to Uncle Sam’s toys really makes me sad; although, to be honest, a D-9 bulldozer (my particular favorite) would be so large and clumsy for such an operation that it would make a nightmare of even getting into some of the areas that I plan on working. You don’t even see equipment that big at most building sites; maybe at a strip mine, but not when they’re leveling ground for a 7-11 in your neighborhood.

An ARMORED D9, buried to the cab, outside of my perimeter in Al-Anbar, Iraq – 2005

So, as I sit and consider this, I remind myself that there are reasons that the house sold for $70,000 less than the asking price. This is one of them. Will the house slide off its foundation if I don’t fix this before winter? No. Will it be more difficult to load the trailer and maneuver around the truck? Yes; however, I will not be driving anything other than the F-250 this Winter, not counting my Ural, so there’s something to be said for keeping the driveway a little “difficult” for those folks that I don’t like stopping by anyway…

Afghanistan at its best…

It’s all in how you look at it.

Ken