Cheap and Simple Road Fix After North Idaho Spring Thaws

[Musicinabottle]

We all dread it in North Idaho, and it really tears our driveways up if you don't have a good road base. Worse yet, if you don't have a tractor, it can cause you grief with hours of raking and shoveling or expense having someone come grade your road. I now have a tractor, but over the years, I discovered a way to help put your road back together, as things begin to dry out. I call it the "Drunk Jerry" after my good buddy, who happens to love "Steel Reserve". Of course, the best solution is to not drive on your road during Spring thaw, but inevitably, you do, and it tears it up. Here's the fix. As things just start to begin drying out, begin driving on your road again, steering left to the edge of your road, then immediatly to the right, up to the edge of the road, back and forth repeadedly. Do this each time you drive in or out, and change course and frequency of your steering each time you drive in or out. Crazy as it sounds, your tracks will rarely repeat, and generally what happens is that your tracks come acrossed each other at angles and help flatten out other tracks as you cut across them. The lower picture indicates the pattern that your wheels will leave. As the drying continues, the ruts get less pronounced until it's just about flat. It doesn't totally fix your road, but it sure helps mend it and reduces the amount of raking and repair time for you, allowing you more time to save up for a tractor!