Leaf-blowing the… driveway?

Ahh, our driveway. It’s what allows us to have a magnificent view of Flathead Lake. And it’s one of the most infuriating things about our house. There are many stories here in my blog about the problems it’s caused. Now that winter is definitely over, once again we have a layer of fine gravel on the entire driveway– the result of sanding it during the winter months to keep it passable for Kyra and Hannah while they lived here.

I’d resigned myself to sweeping it again, which is a tedious two-day chore. But Hannah suggested I get a leaf blower. Hmm. If it’s powerful enough, it’ll just blow the little rocks out of the way. Since raking the pine needles every fall is another tedious chore, I figured I’d see what a leaf blower would do. I picked up a Husky electric model and went to work.

Sure enough, the gravel wiggled and danced and then slid right off the asphalt! It was still a slow job, but I was finished in two hours instead of two days, and didn’t have to push a broom a thousand times. The end result looks pretty nice.

I’m interested to see how it does against the pine needles. But at least my spring driveway cleanup won’t be as bad any more…

Hot tub shopping

Now that we’re back, I have a list of house projects that I’ve been compiling over the past year. On that list– and something that seemed like a fun activity today– is getting a new hot tub. The one we have is almost twenty-five years old, and is starting to show its age. It leaks, several jets have failed, and it feels kind of cramped. I have no idea how much a hot tub costs, or how you even pick a good one, so the best way to answer those questions is to go to the hot tub store!

Kyra and Hannah like this one. It’s huge.

I like this one. It’s tiny.

Most of the time it’ll be just the two of us using the hot tub, but when we have company we’ll need something that’ll fit at least four people. We test-drove (test-sat?) this one and all agreed it was a good compromise between huge and tiny.

I’m not quite ready to place an order yet, but at least we have answers to our questions. We’ll see what happens…