The Ugly Hill gets a makeover

we're not trying to break the bank we're just trying to make an ugly hill a little less ugly damn dude people are like why don't you use your excavator more and i'm like because i can do everything with a skid loader that i can with an excavator [Music] good morning you guys we got a big ugly hill to fix but before we do that my truck is dead in the parking lot of menards we gotta check to see if maybe by some miracle it'll come back to life all on its own brought it down to fury motors which is the place i bought it from and they said oh she's in good shape ready to go take her away and i did and i got six miles down the road and she died in the back lot and she killed totally right in the gate so let's see if she's gonna by a miracle help me out this morning okay starts will she run [Music] here we go are you kidding me are you this truck is driving me nuts always something fun right all right let's worry about fixing the big ugly hill and if you guys want to know how things go with this subscribe because this is going i have a feeling this is going to be an ongoing [Music] sounds like alex you've got things fired up let's see how his progress went yesterday was pretty treacherous that hill is pretty steep one of those kinds of hills where if you climb up to the top and you start wiggling and the ground was really soft yesterday you start wiggling and you get out of being straight up and down she's going to go sideways she's going to roll kitty she's going to go kitty womp as fast oh i love it oh [Applause] what the what are you doing what's on so awesome look at the joint spaces on that thing holy crap you might want to just talk to her about that though alex she might want the joint spaces to put plants in not a straight top dude that looks not cool that looks perfect holy crap i love it that's just that some foresight in there that's nice damn pleasant surprise looks better than timmy's first wall i'm not hey i'm not joking you know you got to set a guy free at some point right yeah timmy built a bunch of smaller retaining walls and we got into this massive project it was way bigger than this whole hill it was about 15 feet tall and it was like 150 feet long so pretty massive project but it was out in the woods so you know it was along a walking trail we were creating this whole thing and i went out and he built the entire thing got it built up and went out and it had to be all tore down the whole thing like from the top to the entire bottom because instead of getting the the joint spaces right in the alignment right on the boulders he would have a little bit over on a boulder and it would be a lower boulder and you can't do that he like screwed up so you gotta ask timmy how he screwed up like on on a boulder like this instead of being flush well actually you need to push this one back a titch [Music] yup so can you imagine something like that though being 15 feet tall and having one and then maybe everything else looks good and then having one more just slightly off but you can't be slightly off so he i looked at him like tim you got to tear the whole thing down he's like no way and i'm like yeah and then i got the engineer out because i didn't want to spend two and a half weeks tearing it down and rebuilding it got the engineer out and even the engineer was like i agree we should start over again and that's why tim may be a little bit more technical now but this is amazing dude this is amazing freaking love it well while alex is working let's do a little more sorting over here let's figure out his base boulders for him put the smaller ones to the side and grab these base ones so we can get him fed that late makes his job a little easier i think i'm getting coopers i like them coopers i don't know what what tires do you guys like i heard coopers are made in america i can't confirm nor deny that i don't know if it's the truth or not so far those cooper atps have been a pretty damn good tire which ones do you guys like roll with and how's your experience been i think we got enough boulders on whole valley it's over for a while and um i think alex is one of those guys that i'm guessing a few of you guys know these guys that you just need a chance to prove themselves and uh sometimes they can't prove themselves if you're breathing over their shoulders they don't feel like they're doing it yet i may be wrong on this but i think if i give him some space we'll take off for a little bit and then we'll come back in here and see how he's doing look at he's thinking right now he's great he's wondering which boulder to pick i love seeing how guys like that like every boulder wall has its own style hey i got these set up for big and then small over here do you need are you looking for something specific you say it i'll grab it this one [Music] okay [Music] i have a feeling more than one of you guys is gonna be like dirt monkey why do you keep jiggle juggling all those boulders around well there's actually a reason what i'm trying to do is lay these out so that they have their best balance point you can find that on the ground a lot of times how do these boulders just naturally want to lay and when you're trying to build a nice flat base for them to lay on in a wall the ground is going to be more forgiving than if they're laying on top of another set of boulders so i'll jiggle joggle these things around till i feel like oh this might be a great way for them to fit into the wall so you'll see me flip them rotate them and get them to the point where they're at their most stable and then leave them space them out so he can bring that claw in and have enough room that he can grab him without bouncing and banging off from other ones as much as possible of course and then just spin rotate and flip them right into the wall i'm just trying to make this job a little bit easier oh look at the artist is getting paid oh he's gonna hand lift that [ __ ] yeah that's a smart move alex that's gonna preserve your back the artist has to has to get it just perfect i get that feeling man i get that feeling do you need a hand that's a finger smasher what you're doing you're gonna need those nose pickers a few more years just be careful when you're building a retaining wall it's like a jigsaw puzzle right but none of the pieces were designed if really fit together you got to make them fit together so here's the thing let me kind of set this best backwards so you're building and build and stacking and then you put one ahead and as you try to stack towards it if this one can't move because it's locked into the design of the lower course you gotta you gotta have the just right piece to make it fit and that can be a challenge i think that's what alex is finding out one of the fun things about building walls that one doesn't look too bad let's grab those two little tiny ones [Music] i got you a nice one you might like it ow it's uh this is all of them does that one work nah right next to you yeah sk oh all right well good that's it you got all your boulders here i'm going i got to go help lane hey where's the 150 pound plate packer the one with the rubber plate it's inside is the shot blocked one arm blades heading down there i got to go help them load up sprinklers the enemy of every landscaper that has ever existed trying to work on a job when they just randomly come on what i'm talking about looks like these popped on and mucked things up but it could have just been a test run by the irrigation company and it's pretty dry out so we'll be able to keep working now at the end of the world here we are we're at the next phase of this project which is where we decide if we want to go any higher we'll technically we don't decide anything good morning how are you doing good how do you like it okay okay so alex is making the job bigger good morning morning landon by the way how are you doing so we are uh so go ahead tell them what you're gonna do now alex i'm just gonna add another string of bowlers in along the back side there almost like a little second tier up there just for a little more character sounds fantastic you like that yeah yeah yeah good good good good i like it i like it and then uh mulch right yep right after fabric or plastic fabric fabric fabric i have a preference fabric fabric holds the mulch better and on this hill we want this mulch to stick to the fabric make sure you really staple down this slope too because their kids are going to be going up and down on this and they got a dog so that's going to be going up and down on this so we really need to staple the fabric in and then yeah and we're using a double shredded hardwood mulch and one of the things that i pointed out to sarah i pointed out to these guys was the reason we're using a double shredded hardwood wash alex we hold this for just a second here okay so on a slope like this a double shredded hardwood mulch versus chips we don't use chips i don't use chips anywhere to be quite honest with you uh chips don't bind you see how this actually stitches together and on a slope that's going to hold together now the keywords are double shredded hardwood mulch so we use a hardwood so it doesn't rot over the next year or two i mean it will as soon as you play it down it's in a state of decomposition but a slower state versus a soft mulch so it's critical we get the right mulch you will never almost never see us using wood chips they don't stick together they don't hold they wash they blow they're almost never the right choice for us maybe for somebody else but not for us so we got phase two to go on sounds good sounds good to you guys great all right so now a couple things what i want to talk about this area right here i like the way this looks and this is okay because this is the maximum wall height but you see that small stone i would never put a smaller stone underneath there because there's not enough meat behind it on a bigger wall on a bigger wall if we were going six foot if we were going eight foot we'd have to replace this because there isn't enough meat behind this stone i know on this one too and this one's got a pretty good i mean it's back there pretty far good ways and it's on top of this one and that one for what you're doing yes okay here absolutely alex what i'm saying on a six or an eight foot you can't do that because that's gonna uh then then the stone that stone is resting on the fill and that fill may not be a hundred percent compacted because it's almost impossible to get into all the nooks and crannies and technically it can wash and then if you're adding stone after stone after stone after stone on that that additional weight is going to really accentuate any issues so um but in a situation like this what this does is it i like how it throws off the basket we've patterned so let's talk about um for these guys the basket weave pattern let's eliminate this and you see how we've got this basket weave right here going on it's a it's a pattern and sometimes in a boulder wall you want that and sometimes you don't want to see a pattern and you've gotta know which way you're gonna go so he likes it a great job of throwing off the pattern by placing in a few different stones which just helped knock the i meant make that visual change and it works i think it works good [Music] do [Music] hey blaine hold on i can't hear you there you are hey um how close to the shop are ya up more 40 minutes okay perfect i'm gonna try i'm gonna try to drive my dodge truck down to fury motors because it's not running it's uh it died on me at menards yesterday so so if you could keep your phone on i'll let you know how far i get because i may need you to pick me up on the side of the road and if i'm lucky enough to get to fury motors i'll have you pick me up at fury motors okay and then drive have you drive me back to my car which i'll leave at menards in westlake that's not gonna screw up the schedule up there is it or is it no no okay okay good i got something all right okay all right i'll keep you updated all right sounds good all right she made her six miles the here's the weirdest this freaking truck i'll tell you the weirdest thing about this thing um it died the problem originally started maybe you guys seen the video maybe you didn't but to sum it up i got it home after work and it literally died in my driveway three times in a row so the next day and it wouldn't run and i just gave up one of those long hard days at work just more enough to deal with gave up on it the next day i go out runs fine i get it all the way down to fury motors they don't have any problems with it they change out the the with the ignition switch right i drive it six miles up here inside the back guys in the back but it's been a day so maybe like the first time she'll run the six miles and get me down to fury motors and we'll be good what just wondering why your truck was parked it's dead oh okay are you in with menards yeah oh yeah it's that i'm trying to get it out i know you you do you did my dad's flow i did yeah you did which one over on mainzer there's a huge white brick wall that was falling forward okay yeah yes we had we and then we had to engineer that because uh we had to hold up the house it was only a four foot tall wall yeah yeah that was my house oh very cool hey nice to meet you andrew andrew stan so yeah she died in here yesterday and i'm trying to get it out so right now i'm gonna try to drive it again i pulled it i literally pulled it from the get a little sandra i pulled it out a few i brought it down to fury motors to have them repair it okay they this is repaired i get it back into your guys's yard over there and it dies and it died at the gate i got it over to here unloaded i had it stacked pulled another truck in unloaded it and now if i can get it to run i'm getting it back down to fury motors yeah yeah watch your channel by the way oh you do cool oh so you interrupt your video oh dude you're you're part of it now andrew so all right well i'll get her out of here for you guys no it's fine i was just i saw it on camera and i'm like this has been here all day since i've been here oh your security huh yeah okay okay that makes sense makes sense all right thanks andrew let's go right let's go towards south st paul drive drive drive drive drive drive drive drive drive drive i'll put my seat belt down in a minute if the car is driving ooh don't die going up this oh crap oh she kept she's still running oh she died she died but then she caught herself oh there we go nope we're still running [Music] well i didn't want to go on any major roads but by taking this route i won't be on the highway but i will be on this like the entrance to it and fury motors is just down the hill the bottom of the hill and she's a steep hill worst case scenario i could coast if if the coast was clear i should be able to coast all the way down i'm driving right in frank frank dinka do you can have this truck and shove it up your rump let's go see mike mike is a good guy mike's the best part about fury motor right now i think he got a haircut i made it with the truck side roads it started this morning mike it drove all the way here now i got it on video dead dead dead dead yesterday i don't know any lights on this morning yeah oh yeah the engine light is on and i think it has something to do if it gets too hot dude look at the ladies hi ladies hi are you wondering what's going on [Laughter] hey blaine hold on give me a minute he's looking for a rental i think so i started looking at the tip because you had 24 codes back in there again so i say well that's something like looking like a power or ground issue but this right here is loose you can hear really oh look at that she's like as soon as i wiggled it just enough car died yeah so that's got to be it round yeah okay here we go clear the coats out of it run into it and see if all those same you won't get the power up at speed because you're not driving but look at that the fact that i was telling these guys that does this driving me nuts is the fact that it it was dead yesterday yeah what's that i know that'll cause that but why would it the next day be okay i would say tightening that up obviously this should be good but let's take it out you are different i'll give it a test run yeah you had different ones that said like power power up at speed and everything from when it would die but obviously you're not driving now so grounds can and with all the electronics now they can just lose communication i'll tell ya i like the fact you guys found that but i don't buy that that's the only thing i hope it is i hope you guys are 100 right i would i would say that's where you have to start and go with that you know about that about it dying after it ran got hot and then the next day like it it acted like it would cool off and when i went and grabbed that ground it was hot i'm gonna burn my fingers grabbing it what they said was when it gets hot like when the ground gets hot that interferes with the resistance of the ground and if it was already marginal it could create the problems this kind of sounds like it makes sense to me and the truck is running with no codes truck fix that's something how's that arm doing oh it's it's hurting is it yeah did he dislocate your shoulder well i've had a couple separate shoulders in my lifetime and it feels the same so i don't know i haven't had it checked yet maybe a little time a little ice yeah it doesn't seem to be getting a lot better but i haven't been as much as i should be today there we go nothing wrong with that before it opens yeah what kind of excuse do you got i've always got a camera in one hand i mean it's not much different than what you're doing [Music] yeah all right let's get her in i can't see now so just don't let me just don't i don't want you hurting yourself plain oh we got a little water washing the bed of the truck blade stay back stay back hold on [Music] you know you can let the guy with two arms do it but i mean you know when you're on the camera too oh yeah no yeah i'm just standing right here i can do it for ya this needs a new starter and we'll be using it next next job i think hopefully next job hopefully we'll have that back together for the next job all right blaine see you later be safe buddy drive safe have a good day you know what and i want you guys to be safe drive safe and also have a good day wherever you go i think that's going to just about do it for today's video it was a fun fun adventure was it really fun i don't know it was just something we got through it we got the truck running again that's huge we alex is doing great on that retaining wall uh we've got blaine loaded up ready to rock and roll getting materials back to tim so whatever it is you guys are up to i hope it's just a successful operation for you god bless you guys hopefully we'll see another one if you enjoy these videos if you could hit that like button that goes a long way god bless and go get them you guys