During the intervening days from last week when record temperatures, blue skies, buzzing bees, and singing birds filled the air, I scurried over to our new "road" with the Gator. The temperatures were more typical for February. The skies had dropped some wet precipitation, and the clay fill for our new driveway was shiny, greasy and slippery after the melted morning frost. Our hope was that it would dry throughout the week. The three foot culvert needed to go in.
So on Thursday, when Farmer's Husband was home, we endeavored to place the new culverts. The galvanized culverts are 14 gauge steel, 3 feet in diameter 50 feet long (after coupling them together). Eventually the seven foot riser will be attached in the pond-side as well, but probably not for a year or so as our new created driveway will need more and more fill during its settling year. That additional water would make fine tuning of the driveway's surfaces a little more complicated.
It all started with picking up the 26 foot long section and carrying it across the road.
The "creek" from the 2-3 acre lowland trickled slowly into the ditch where it eventually met a river. From where I am standing on the berm to the bottom is about 4 and a half feet deep. The edge is filled with soft dirt. And, as you can see there are still roots and concrete to remove from the bottom before we can place the culvert. Gary gently placed the culvert temporarily in the ditch.
Around the back access road to the other side of the creek Farmer's Husband drove his JD 4720 (our biggest workhorse on the farm) and dug out the old root and straighten this end of the flow so that the culvert would be settled on the bottom.
This end Gary had straightened last weekend as one of the last things to do before dusk arrived. But the area where the riser would eventually be attached needed to be enlarged before we placed the culvert and so the big, heavy tractor and backhoe wiggled its way to the the bottom of the berm and dug gray, sloppy-wet mucky clay out of that area.
We placed the culvert in the broken berm and had to dig out (by hand) the edges where the seep preventer would be attached. In hindsight, we would have dug this perpendicular trench prior to resting the culvert and seep preventer in the berm.... sure would have made inserting this section of culvert into the berm much, much easier.
What's a seep preventer? I'm glad you asked. I didn't know either. What I discovered is that critters like muskrats and crayfish like to burrow near the edge of a culvert. When they do that they create passageways for water to penetrate and of course that weakens the berm. The seep preventer does just that. It prevents burrowing alongside the culverts and prevents water from traversing its way outside of the culvert. All the water must therefore go through the pipe.
Putting the seep preventer on was a little tricky. I almost lost a couple of fingers when I accidently dropped my end of the top component of the metal preventer and my fingers pinched between the top and bottom sections. Ouch! Got a nice bruise and swollen index finger but all the parts were still attached! While I recovered, Farmer's Husband bolted the two sections together while the tractor held the culvert out of the hole.
Now, in theory, one should only have to drop the massive heavy culvert into the clay berm and the culvert with the metal edged seep preventer should settle nicely to the bottom of the trenched stream. In theory.
Ah.... not quite.
Since the backhoe was already near, Gary considered whether the boom could press down the culvert. He was able to get it in a couple of inches. But no more. Thankfully though, the flowing water could still go under the culvert. Otherwise that "pond" would have quickly enlarged.
But even with lots of effort and changing positions on the culvert, the backhoe could not press the pipe and preventer into the clay soil....
Perhaps the loader could?
Unfortunately by now, the drizzling rain had begun. Rain and fresh clay soil with an incline are not a good combination. Yes, you guessed it. Turning the tractor around at the edge of the marshy field resulted in burying the tractor to the axles, hanging up the back hoe and getting our poor JD 4720 stuck yet again. This time we had a 4+ foot edge to keep away from. But the slope of the driveway, and the slippery clay kept making the tractor slide towards the culvert and the "cliff" of the berm every time we tried to get out. We wouldn't be walking or driving out of this one.
Thankfully, there was a nice strong black walnut tree on the other side of the driveway. Farmer's Husband and I grabbed some thick chain and the mega-strong come-a-long. And yes, he winched that tractor out of the slippery, pond edge.
After about an hour and a half of "pulling", the tractor was free and Gary drove it up the driveway as fast as he could before even more rain came. With a little slip-sliding, he made it up the driveway, around the building sight, across the upper pond berm and down and around the previously made culvert and marshy area. Coming from this direction, where there was still grass on the berm and less incline, we thought we could press the culvert and seep preventer into the edge with the loader. At first only a few inches were achieved. But then Gary got this marvelous idea about adding a little more weight to the loader and to wiggle-waggle the culvert into the ground with a back and forth motion on the culvert.
It worked! The culvert is now at the bottom of the "creek" and water is flowing through it and not around or under it. Yeah!
Half the culvert is in. It was simply too slippery to continue and so the second half of the culvert and the adventure of attaching a coupler to the existing culvert in the broken berm, would have to wait another day. The rest of the weekend was cold and wet with rain and snow. But I am eager to get access. Perhaps next weekend?
Today's Journey Joys: aching muscles which heal, safety (and fingers!) from dropped metal seep preventers, a strong come-a-long, unstuck tractors, flowing water and the soft trickling sound, green grass peeking out from under golden dried blades - they too longing for spring, and seed starting next weekend!
