More and More

(post by Jason) This week I once again got to feed my long term gravel addiction with nine loads for spreading around gates and in feeding areas in several pastures and six loads for part of the driveway. I don’t know exactly when gravel got expensive but I know we spent many thousands of dollars on these loads, and history suggests we’ll get to do so again in the spring.

Gravel is one of many costs that most folks don’t take into account when they’re figuring up their board prices and we think this is a mistake. In my opinion you have to have an all weather driveway, all weather areas around buildings, an all weather parking area and some all weather areas for feeding/grooming/etc around the gates. These areas take A LOT of gravel to maintain. We have been doing this for a number of years and every year we can count on spending eight to ten thousand dollars on gravel. If our budget allowed it we could use significantly more. Over the course of our working lifetime if we continue to add gravel at rates similar to past usage rates, we will have spent as much or more money on gravel than on any other single improvement on this farm including barns and fences. That’s mind boggling but true. Now that you know how much money we’ve got tied up in stone, the next time you visit you can forget about complementing our pretty fences or our well maintained pastures. Instead I want you to bend over, pick up a piece of gravel and say, “nice rock!” before carefully putting it back exactly where you found it.

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spreading gravel in a pasture by the gate area