Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Did you ever determine if there was any other leaks in it causing all the water logged ground?

It appears the repairs I did fixed the leak, as the ground is now drying up.

I ASSUME you are using Sched 40 PVC??

Yes, I was. I think the angle iron gave it enough rigidity to keep the parts from separating.

Mon, Feb 23 - Tue, Feb 24
On Monday, Feb 23, I checked the water lines and did not see any water leaking. So I covered over the pipes with the excavator, and then went to work clearing out some ditches that I described in earlier posts. Dummy me forgot to take any pictures except for one. But here is where I worked, digging trenchs or making existing ditches deeper:



At area A was a pile of dirt about 2 feet high running north/south that looked as if a bulldozer had cleaned out the area just to the west. Water would stand west of this pile of dirt, keeping the pasture soggy. I dug a trench through the pile so that the water could drain out. I intend to add some dirt later to raise the pasture up so that it drains better.

Area B is just west of the road we had built last March that goes into the picnic area south of the shop. In January we had a rain of 5.5" in 12 hours that made a lot of ruts across that road. I dug a 2 ft deep trench along the west side to divert the water down to the culvert.

Area C is a place on the path to the deer stand on the west side of our property that often stays boggy, as sediment washing down from the ridge spreads out there. I dug 2 trenches there so the water can flow better. I will need to put in 2 culverts there.

Area D is where I cleaned out a lot of sediment from the ditch that flows west to east. Because the ditch was so shallow there from all of the sediment, water often overflowed out into the pasture to the north, causing erosion. Now that the ditch is deeper, I am hoping that will stop the erosion for awhile.

Area E is where the ditch crosses underneath one of the 2 cross tie bridges I built. I cleaned out the sediment from the ditch there.

Area F is where water flowing down from the ridge would spill into the pasture. I dug a trench so that the water would flow into the ditch at point E. Here is what it looked like after I finished:


Area G is where I built the second cross tie bridge, so I cleaned out the sediment on either side of the bridge so the water would flow better. I put the sediment I dug out into the ruts that had formed on either side of the bridge. Dummy me forgot to pack down the dirt in the ruts, which ended up biting us later (explained in a later post).

Area H is where I dug a trench from an area where the water was flowing into the pasture so that it would flow under the bridge at point G.

Area I is where I dug a trench that would catch the water flowing into the pasture there and divert it to flow under the bridge at point G.

more posts...

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

On Wed Feb 25, I faced a dilemma -- I had cleaned out all of the areas that I knew needed cleaning out and was left with work I could do but wasn't needing to be done right away. Since I was supposed to return the excavator on Thursday, I decided that I would clean up the excavator and get it put back on the trailer and then be ready to leave first thing Thursday. That is when my Texas Aggie I/Q made itself known in a BIG way!

First, I started washing the excavator with the power washer. Partway through the washing, I managed to get the pressure hose against the muffler on the engine and melted the hose, so that water started spraying everywhere! A 20 minute trip to Tractor Supply and back then followed. Finally, after 2 tankfuls of gas for the power washer and 2 hours of effort, I got everything clean.

Next, I decided to attach the trailer to the truck. After getting the truck positioned properly, I lowered the trailer onto the hitch ball, secured the chains, and moved out of the way the blocks I had used to place under the trailer jack.

After getting the trailer hooked up to the truck, I drove the excavator onto the trailer. As the entire weight of the excavator was placed on the end of the trailer, the trailer tongue came flying up and off of the hitch ball! I immediately backed of the trailer, so the trailer tongue was now hanging by the safety chains below and to the side of the hitch. I knew that the trailer had a sticker which said that the hitch ball needed to be 2 5/16" and that I had a 2" ball, but since I had not had any trouble towing it from Home Depot, I figured that the 2" ball would be OK. Obviously I was wrong.

I had a 2 5/16" hitch ball in the truck which I had purchased back when we planned to go RVing, so I decided to install that in place of the 2" ball. I started to remove the 2" ball from the hitch that goes into the receiver on the truck. At first the nut was really hard to turn, but with some silicon spray and a pipe wrench and water pump pliers I was able to get the nut loose. But as the nut reached the end of the hitch ball bolt shaft, it started getting hard again. The harder I turned the wrenches the harder it became to turn the nut. Finally I looked at the end of the hitch ball's bolt. There was a cotter pin there designed to keep the nut from coming off! By forcing the nut so tight against the cotter pin, I had managed to bend the cotter pin so that it could not be easily removed! After much weeping and gnashing of teeth I was able to get the cotter pin out! But then I discovered that there was another nylon nut holding the ball in place! Ugh! Then I happened to remember that I had a larger hitch in the truck to which I could attach the 2 5/16" ball. I had attempted to remove the 2" ball from the hitch for no good reason!

After putting the 2 5/16" ball on the larger hitch and putting that hitch into the truck's receiver, I was now ready to try to hook up the trailer. Unfortunately the trailer tongue was so heavy that I could not lift up the tongue at all. Using the trailer jack, I raised it as high as I could, which was still not high enough for the hitch ball to go under the trailer tongue. I tried lifting up the trailer tongue using the excavator, but I could not get a good grip on it and the trailer tongue kept sliding off of the excavator. Finally I got out the tractor and using the front end loader was able to raise up the trailer enough so that the ball would go under the trailer tongue. Once I did that, I was able to get the trailer hooked up to the truck and get the excavator onto the trailer without any problems. So from the time I started washing the excavator to the time I finally got the excavator onto the trailer and chained down, it took me 4 hours!

On Thursday, Feb 26 I was able to take back the excavator to Home Depot without mishap. I took off the remainder of the day.

more posts...

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

On Friday, Feb 27, my Beautiful Gal wanted to see the new driveway and to see where I had dug with the excavator. So we went on the Gator side-by-side and I showed her what I had done. When we got to the second bridge (point G in the picture) where I had filled the ruts with dirt, the Gator got stuck in the mud just past the bridge. With rear differential lock and 4WD I still was unable to get the Gator unstuck. Because I failed to pack down the dirt with the excavator when I put it there on Monday or Tuesday, it had become really soft, even though it looked dry. So I had to walk back to the shop and get the tractor and come over and pull out the Gator from that area.

After we finished touring the areas I had worked, we decided to make some logs to build corduroy roads on both sides of the approaches of both bridges. We spent the rest of the day cutting up the trees I had saved for making a corduroy road and delimbing them. On Saturday, Feb 29, I cut up some more trees into logs, but because the chain on my chainsaw has stretched out so long that it comes off easily, I decided to quit until I got a new chain.

So that is what we have been up to the past 2 weeks.

One final note -- even though I tried to stay abreast of what was happening on BYH, I was not getting alerts on several of the journals I follow, such as Miss @B&B Happy goats, Miss @farmerjan, Miss @Duckfarmerpa1, and Miss @Larsen Poultry Ranch. Because of that I had not read of all of the troubles each of you had. So please know it wasn't because I didn't care but because BYH wasn't notifying me. But I will try to get caught up on everyone's journal today.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

On Friday, Feb 27, my Beautiful Gal wanted to see the new driveway and to see where I had dug with the excavator. So we went on the Gator side-by-side and I showed her what I had done. When we got to the second bridge (point G in the picture) where I had filled the ruts with dirt, the Gator got stuck in the mud just past the bridge. With rear differential lock and 4WD I still was unable to get the Gator unstuck. Because I failed to pack down the dirt with the excavator when I put it there on Monday or Tuesday, it had become really soft, even though it looked dry. So I had to walk back to the shop and get the tractor and come over and pull out the Gator from that area.

After we finished touring the areas I had worked, we decided to make some logs to build corduroy roads on both sides of the approaches of both bridges. We spent the rest of the day cutting up the trees I had saved for making a corduroy road and delimbing them. On Saturday, Feb 29, I cut up some more trees into logs, but because the chain on my chainsaw has stretched out so long that it comes off easily, I decided to quit until I got a new chain.

So that is what we have been up to the past 2 weeks.

One final note -- even though I tried to stay abreast of what was happening on BYH, I was not getting alerts on several of the journals I follow, such as Miss @B&B Happy goats, Miss @farmerjan, Miss @Duckfarmerpa1, and Miss @Larsen Poultry Ranch. Because of that I had not read of all of the troubles each of you had. So please know it wasn't because I didn't care but because BYH wasn't notifying me. But I will try to get caught up on everyone's journal today.

Senile Texas Aggie

Awww, thanks for reading my journal!! !! Better luck next time with the Gator!! Yikes!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Sounds like you have had an eventful few weeks. I'm glad you are completing projects and your tractor is working again.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

All,

This post will be a long boring one, covering Monday, Mar 02 through Sunday, March 08, so be sure to grab a cup of coffee so you can stay awake!

My wife's next older sister Treasa and her husband James came last Monday and stayed until Saturday morning. James helped me do some work around the homestead. (Unfortunately dummy me forgot to take pictures except for one time.) On Monday we went to Booneville where I bought 3 10-foot sections of 6" well casing. I cut off 4 pieces of about 1 foot in length to place over the valves and pressure regulators in order to raise up the round covers I bought. The covers were about 6" too short and would quickly be covered in dirt, but with the well casing I was able to raise them up about 6" to be at ground level. We used the other 2 sections to place in trenches I had dug across the path to the deer stand, where it often stayed boggy. We then covered over the pipes with dirt.

On Tuesday we gathered some trees to cut into 8'-10' lengths and delimbed them in order to make a corduroy road on the approach to the first cross tie bridge I built. It had gotten muddy there and the tractor ruts had gotten deep, so I knew something needed to be done.

On Wednesday we built the corduroy road on the north end of the bridge. First we laid down the trees across the road. Next, we placed the limbs across the trees. Even though I was supposed to put dirt on top of the limbs, I didn't do that as I did not have any dirt readily available there. Here is a picture of the result:


After driving over the road with both the Gator and the tractor, I am VERY disappointed with the result, as it is VERY bumpy. Either I will need to add dirt to the top of the corduroy road, or I will simply remove it and put down enough dirt to build up the road and hope it does not develop ruts as badly as it had.

On Thursday I decided to use the wood chipper and make wood chips for the south end of the bridge. We gathered up a lot of branches and trees and piled them up near the bridge, and then by directing the chute on the chipper towards the bridge, we chopped up enough of the wood chips to fill the first 5' or so of the ruts, stopping when we ran out of trees in the brush pile. Later that day when we got back to the house I saw where Mike Morgan on the YouTube channel Outdoors with the Morgans had gotten a wood chipper to use. I read a good bit of the comments to the video and several of them advised Mike not to put down any wood chips on the trails in the woods, primarily on the slopes, as the chips would make the trail muddy and keep it wet. Huh? I thought the opposite would happen. We'll see if I screwed up by putting the wood chips down on the south end of the bridge.

On Friday I decided to burn some brush, as earlier I had done a lot of cutting down trees that lined the pastures. We managed to burn 2 brush piles. Then I decided to cut down two dead trees that were next to the bridge where we put the corduroy road, as well as a third dead tree along the south side of the northern most pasture that was along the creek. It had a limb way up that I was afraid would break off at any moment, so I wanted that tree down as well. So we cut down those trees without any problems.

Since there was still plenty of daylight left, I swapped the grapple for the tree shear, and we went back to the overgrown pasture south of the bridge where we built the corduroy road to cut down or trim cedar trees. I had James drive the tractor with the tree shear on it, while I cut down or trimmed cedar trees with a pole saw. Finally, we quit for the day.

On Saturday after they left to go home, I decided to go back to that pasture and continue cutting down cedar trees, since I still had the tree shear on the tractor. I decided to focus along the ditch, moving from the bridge at the west end of the ditch to the east end. I was almost at the east end of the ditch when I noticed smoke coming from the direction of the brush pile that we had burned yesterday. When I got closer, I noticed that the fire was in the grove of trees and brush along the ditch next to the brush pile. Somehow a spark had blown from the brush pile earlier that morning and had caught the brush on fire. So I went around to the other side of the ditch where the fire was and began trying to put out the fire with the shredder on the mower. This worked for the most part, but there were a few stubborn places that wouldn't go out. I went to the house and got my Beautiful Gal, who came down in the Gator with shovels and hoes and other tools, and we worked on putting out the fire together. We managed to get the fire out except for a rotten stump (about 3 feet tall) that had caught on fire and we couldn't get the fire out. So I went back to the shop and got 2 5-gallon buckets of water and poured the water on the stump, putting out the fire (or so we thought).

About 6 PM, we went out to the porch to drink some decaffeinated coffee before starting our reading. When we got out there, we noticed a LOT of smoke in the air. It seemed to be coming from where the stump was. "Oh, no! The stump had started burning again and this time the fire has gotten really big!" We had already taken showers and were in our pajamas when we decided to go back to that area. This time I decided to put the tank sprayer in the Gator and filled it half full of water (~20 gals), and then we took off over to where the stump was. Much to our surprise and relief, the stump was not burning, nor were the woods or pasture on fire. We drove around our property to ensure no fires were burning. We finally decided that someone else was burning some brush somewhere over the ridge behind our house and that was what was causing all of the smoke!

On Sunday I decided to build up the path in the pasture next to the woods just south of our house. I did OK, but the dirt was a bit too wet to pack it down level, so I will finish another day.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[thistlebloom]

Sounds like you got a lot done last week! It's always handy when you have house guests to make them earn their supper, remind them that there is no free lunch either! Just kidding, I'm sure they enjoyed helping and visiting.
When my sister comes she scopes out all the big projects and goads us into working on them. I'm not sure her husband is crazy about this bad habit of hers, but he's a nice guy and goes along with it, haha.

That fire was kind of scary, glad you got it out and didn't end up having to do battle in your pj's.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

Yes...very glad the smoke was a false alarm. Hope you get the corduroy path figured out the way you want it. And perhaps you can sit a bit and enjoy another break

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

All,

It has been raining here quite a bit, with rain in the NWS forecast through Friday, Mar 20, with a small break tomorrow afternoon. But there was a break in the rain on Thursday, so I decided to try to dig a trench between two wet weather creeks to divert the water from one creek to the other. Here is the area with the two creeks (in red) and the trench I dug (in yellow):


The creek to the north currently drains into the pasture and keeps that area really wet for quite a while. The creek to the south flows through the woods until it exits the woods at the east end. I decided to dig a trench with the stump bucket on the tractor between the two creeks, attempting to divert the water from the north creek into the south creek. Here is a view of the area before I dug the trench, the first looking northwest and the second looking southeast toward where the first picture was taken:


Here is a view looking southeast after I dug the trench. I piled dirt just to the left of the trench in the north creek to divert the water into the trench. The trench is not nearly as good as what the excavator would have done, but while I had the excavator I could not figure out how to get into that area. I finally saw a way AFTER I returned the excavator (hand slapping forehead):


I plan to check on it tomorrow during the break in the rain to see if the water is flowing through the trench or washed out the pile of dirt I put there and is still flowing into the pasture on the north side.

Nothing else happening here at the homestead. I hope all of you have a wonderful day!

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[farmerjan]

You are making slow but steady progress, and learning alot in the process. It is really looking good.
How is the corona virus situation affecting things out there?