FREE Gravel. Or Was It?...

 

One of the ways I knew I could save quite a bit of money on my landscape project was to see what I could get for FREE or for a really low price off of Facebook Marketplace.  For quite a while I have been scoping out gravel and rocks for our yard and the parking area next to our driveway.  A lot of people have been offering up the opportunity to clean out the gravel they no longer want from yards and bedding areas and haul it off, but others have been cleaning it up themselves and offering it in piles on their sidewalks and driveways.

 

From her yard to my yard

Since I am in the process of rehabbing my poor body the prospect of cleaning up someone's yard for them wasn't an option for me.  Hauling off gravel in a pile is quite a job itself so I knew I wanted to be patient and wait for the right opportunity and on Monday it presented itself.

 

The dog poop shovel got to come along 😁

The timing was right, I had just completed the grassy section of our yard and was ready to move onto the next project which requires a fair bit of gravel.  A very nice lady had a pile of gravel on her patio and needed someone to haul it off for her so I contacted her and we made arrangements.  It was also my daughter's day off from work and she offered to help making it even better.

 

This is the first two loads and I left the third one in the truck

We spent the better part of the day removing the gravel from this patio.  I laid a tarp out in the bed of my truck and we loaded up five gallon buckets to wheel in a garden wagon out of her tiny little backyard to the alley behind her house and dumped them into the truck.  It took us three trips to get it all, there was a lot, and it was hard work, but I was doing it and feeling pretty darn good in the process.  Getting this much gravel for our projects was very fortunate as having a load delivered to my house would have been a huge chunk out of my budget and half the bill was for delivery due to the high cost of fuel right now.  I was feeling very blessed.

 

When we arrived for the last load the homeowner came out and insisted on giving me a twenty dollar bill to pay for our gas.  I was stunned and although I told her that was not necessary she gave it to me anyway saying we had done her a huge favor taking the gravel and that she was incredibly relieved to not have to deal with it herself.  Not at all what we were expecting but I graciously accepted her gift and thanked her for allowing us to have the gravel.

 

Feeling very blessed these days

I have more time and energy right now than I do money so being resourceful and getting the gravel this way couldn't have worked out any better.  The weather was cool and cloudy all day too which made our task even better.  We helped someone out, she was super nice, and in return she helped me plus I made twenty bucks in the process.  It was better than FREE!  I was also able to test myself physically and I'm really happy with how well I seem to be doing with all of this physical labor.  The next morning I was a little stiff and sore, had quite a few happy little bruises on my legs, but all in all I felt pretty great.  And boy did I sleep good that night.  Now to figure out which of the two projects to take on next.  You'll just have to wait and see, but I think I know which one I'll be working on next.