This was the first of two drawn-out winter storms in April, shown from inside Ron’s skid-steerThe month of April was no different, and boy has it made things interesting. We started the month with winter still trying to hang on – windy and rainy. Then the sun came out, started drying things up, and the trees started budding. Just as we started whistling about blue birds on our shoulders, we got two days of snow, with some blizzard conditions thrown in for good measure. Then, as if to reward us for tolerating an April blizzard, the next week treated us with 80 degrees and sunshine.
Want to guess what happened the following week?
Snow, rain, snow, rain, rain. And wind.
The settled snowpack in the local mountains actually increased by thirty inches during the month of April! One 24-hour-period saw 19 inches of snowfall, and a more recent 24-hour-period saw 37 inches!
As a side note: Why does this blog and monthly update always seem to talk so much about the weather? Three reasons: (1) The guy who writes it is a weather geek and loves to talk about it; (2) Northwest Montana is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest places on earth to appreciate diverse weather patterns, with the scenery and landscape providing a fascinating canvas for God’s continuing artwork; and (3) the construction industry is so often affected by weather anyway, so it makes sense to weave the topic into a periodic update on progress.
Mike and Pete, from Touris Plumbing, installing underground supply lines for the radiant heat in the driveways and sidewalks
This is certainly true of the most recent work at Bear Dance, as the focus has been entirely on exterior work. After a winter of sitting on the back-burner, we started the activity back up at the beginning of April, and we’re cooking on all burners in an effort to have this place sparkling beautifully for the summer sales season.
Last summer’s workload focused on completing the waterfront buildings and their surrounding landscapes – in effect, finishing the northern third of the property. We achieved those goals prior to the onset of winter, then waited to see how the market would appear in 2010.
As the winter drew to its end, we wanted to position ourselves for a successful presentation to the real estate market for the peak season. All the indicators, statistics and intangibles are pointing to a much more active sales season this year (the first four months have already far exceeded the pace of last year’s sales, and the overall mood has improved significantly), so we set about determining what would make Bear Dance more marketable and attractive than it already is. The most obvious answer to all involved was to finish the exterior of the remaining two-thirds of the property. Only the interiors of the five-plex would remain unfinished.
East side of the center driveway section, rolled and compacted, and handling the precipitation nicely
So we came up with a list of tasks, a budget, and a plan. As stated in a previous blog posting, finishing the driveways is our biggest goal, but there were tremendous logistical considerations. We had three weeks’ worth of staging, infrastructure and rough-work before we could begin on the driveways, thus limiting our access to several areas. And in spite of the unpredictable weather, we were able to make fantastic progress. All the rough-in work for our courtyard entries was completed (faster than scheduled, actually), and the masonry work (brick and stone) was applied as a finishing touch. The crew from Natural Designs Landscaping took care of all the heavy clean-up and grounds-prep to get ready for landscaping, and the project immediately lost its construction-site look. We also got a lot of our preliminary work finished with Touris Plumbing to be prepared for the driveway heat.
By the time we were ready for the driveway work, our first stretch of beautiful springtime weather was upon us, and we hit the ground running. We spent a few days doing the rough work, moving dirt from one area to another, in order to get our slopes just right. We couldn’t simply make things smooth and call it good; we were under strict guidelines from Montana DEQ to ensure all our rainwater runoff was being contained and filtered through the ground, rather than shedding straight down to Bigfork Bay. Last summer’s work was going to be a critical tie-in with what we had to accomplish this year.
On the left, the stone wall connects the supporting columns and encloses the Madison’s north guest courtyard. One contractor, standing nearby, pointed at the courtyard and said, “If World War Three happens, that’s where I want to be.”
We were slowed by the first stretch of snow showers and rain, saturating the ground and making it impossible to work on the driveways. We couldn’t pack new material on top of wet material, or we’d have problems later on, so we had to simply wait for it to dry out. Thankfully, that’s when the 70’s and 80’s came in with sunshine. After a few days, we were able to begin again, finishing the fine-tuning, spreading the fine gravel, and compacting it with the big roller (pictured above).
As someone once said, it’s better to be lucky than good, and in our case, our timing was just perfect. The day before the second batch of winter (springtime?) weather hit, we finished the compacting. The next day, all that snow and rain simply sat on top, then rolled downhill to our water-gathering areas. Now, at the time of this writing, the driveway areas are still firm and smooth, and all the water-gathering areas mandated by DEQ have worked exactly as advertised. Many construction projects around our area are shut down due to flooding, over-saturated ground, or damage from the excess moisture we’ve received. Bear Dance has drained and dried like a championship golf course.
The southeast corner of Bear Dance – the first you see when driving up – has been cleaned up and prepped for landscaping. The posts on the rock wall will have a wrought iron fence like the south side, and the landscaping will blend smoothly with the neighboring grade. This will keep Bear Dance from having a ‘gated community’ feel, while still retaining security and that Old World feel.
We’ll still need cooperation from the weather to achieve our scheduling goals, but if the saying about April Showers and May Flowers holds true, the month of May will see a tremendous amount of progress on the driveways, and we’ll be in great shape come June. So pray for sun (the sun is peeking through!), and it’ll be a great next month!
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