The headlights from a driveway across West River Road would shine into the homes on Lots 12 and 13. To provide a living visual barrier, Joe Popa hired Tim Curtis to install a mound to block the headlights. A former owner had a large amount of soil deposited onto the south end of Lot 12. Joe designed a mound to make better use of this soil. June 4, 2005 was the day to begin the mound building.
Tim Curtis and his dozer were building the mound.
This deposit of soil next to the stake marks the north end point of the mound. The south end was near a utility pole about halfway to the common driveway entrance.
This is a view from the north boundary stake. The mound was built from the other end where the supply of soil is located.
Partners in many projects, Vince Aiello, age 76 and Joe Popa, age 98, took a break from their work.
As the height of the mound grew, limbs had to be removed from the path of the bulldozer. My husband, Vince Aiello loaded the cut limbs onto the scraper attached to dad's Allis Chalmers tractor. These limbs were taken to the burn pile behind the Lot 10 garage.
This picture shows the mound grown to about the midway point. This Scotch pine was buried in the mound, later it died and we cut it off at ground level.
Joe Popa was off to the burn pile with another load of cut limbs.
Once Tim had moved soil for the rough shape of the mound, giving it a slope safe for mowing, Joe Popa rode the mound with his work horse Allis Chalmers tractor and scraper, scraping the soil and further breaking down the clods of dirt until the surface was fine enough to plant grass and the soil beneath was compacted. Dad had used this technique very successfully with all of the other privacy mounds on the 50 acre farm as he shaped it into Lakeview Rural Reservation.
This is a view of the mound from the west, or Lot 12, side.
This is a view of the south end of the mound.
And this is a view of the mound from the east, or the West River Road side.
The end of a good day's work. The mound was ready for planting. I transplanted volunteer burning bushes from the Lot 10 yard, interspersed with Taxus that mom and I found at the K-mart Super Store on sale. We bought all they had. Dad and I planted grass, covered it with straw, then we watered the mound to give the grass and shrubs a good start.
