THE CULVERT Part 6

Tuesday 11:30 a.m. - It has rained all morning and there is a break in the rain. Since we are having gravel/rock delivered today, I worked from home to be able to sign for the delivery. A lull in the rain means it is time to take my lunch and feed all the animals. I drive down the driveway and get out to walk to the horse barn.

Why am I walking to the horse barn? This is a part of the story I have not previously put in the post. The backhoe has actually been broken down. On Saturday it started acting up and Rod thought he had air in the fuel system - it is diesel. So he spent part of the evening on Saturday and then again on Sunday working on it. He finally got it figured out that it was a pinch in the line. Then last night he was down there moving it and some dirt when a hydraulic line broke. So he had to go to the tractor place today and spend $80 on a new line.

I digress - I am walking to the horse barn and I go over to check out the culvert when I notice... water running under the culvert. This is NOT good news. I immediately call Mark and tell him. He says "I hope you are not right". I did not tell him "I am a woman.. I am always right". Instead I told him "I hope I am not, but to my untrained eye, that is what it looks like". Mark made it here in about 20 minutes and sure enough..I was right.

Here is what it looked like when I walked down there. Notice the spray that is about 5 feet high



As soon as Mark got here he started grabbing dirt and putting it in front of the culvert to block the water flow so that he could work on it. Here is a picture of the culvert, it is dark and hard to see the channel that was washing out underneath it.



Mark working to dam up the culvert so that he could get in it.


And Mark climbing into the culvert. Once he got in there, he found that it was leaking from some holes that were put in the pipe from all the times the backhoe/excavator were used to move it. He had his Dad bring some grout type compound so that he could try to patch the holes well enough until we can get more time to repair completely.




An this last picture is just to show that the gravel delivery guy.... blocked my access to the driveway again and I am stuck again at the house!!!!! Gravel is at a premium right now so you are also looking at just shy of $1,500 worth of rock!!!!!! I think Tonka must be in business with the quarry people. Making kids want to play with dirt and rocks and then charging them a fortune for dirt and rocks when they still want to play with them as an adult!!! :-)