More Construction, the Finished Retaining Walls

I spent the better part of Sunday and Monday working on the retaining wall for the stone bed--hopefully level--on which I will park the RV--should they ever call to say that it's repaired.

After returning from church and a church luncheon, Terry helped with some of the moving of the 6"x6"s and the racheting down of the lag screws to hold them together. While I was drilling holes for the next set of screws, she would screw down the 10" lag screws to the last inch or two and then I would finish them off. We did 21 of those on Sunday while fastening three sets of timbers (two to a set) together to form the base of the downhill wall.

Finished walls of the RV parking area

A lot of time was spent making sure those sets would lay level on the ground. I had purchased ten bags of pea gravel to use as a bed for those timbers but ended up having to scrape away not only the gravel but some additional earth as well. It's a good thing we have lots of flat stones laying around, too. Some of the big ones ended up supporting the rear timbers where the yard sloped off steeply and were used as shims to level other parts of the wall.

One of the 10" long 1/2 diameter lag screws holding the timbers together.

I was pretty much on my own on Monday. I drilled holes and bolted down the top timbers on the downhill wall and then leveled the timbers for the rear wall and screwed them together. That required 24 more screws. I happened upon an easier way to screw them down using a tire lug wrench. More leverage.

Downhill wall with second layer of timbers. 

(The short ones will be bolted in as additional braces.)

Rear wall of the parking area.

I've a little scraping to do with the tractor on the up hill side of the box which measures 12' wide and 24' long. The bed of stone will be 8-10" deep on the downhill side and only an inch or two on uphill side. With any luck, that stone will be delivered in a day or two. They wanted to deliver it on Friday but I had a doctors appointment that turned into an adventure when the Toyota's exhaust system failed while traveling from the doctor's to the hospital for x-rays.

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Speaking of x-rays, the results came in today. Seems I've got nothing but a misaligned lumbar spinal column. And an extra vertebra. With spines and spikes. And arthritis. The recommendation is fro rest. Like that's ever going to happen.