Cleaning Ditched

[Dave]

I had 3 spots that the ditch needed to be clean. Generally we use a ditch plow but these spots were too short, not straight enough, and places you couldn't get a tractor into with the ditch plow. So I rented a mini excavator. I have seen people who are real catty with one of these machines. I am not one of those people. I learned to doing things at an idle and one function at a time works best for me. So I was almost done. I spot some dirt I missed yesterday evening. So sitting at a different angle I reach out and grab it. The machine wouldn't lift or pull it. I finally give up and turned loose. The dirt fell away and there is a slightly smashed black pipe. I get off and look. It is lined up between the house and the spring tank. No water leaking but it sure isn't as round as it once was. Good thing I was just idling the excavator. I wonder why this water line was only 6/8 inches under ground at this point. We don't get terrible cold but we do have sub zero temperatures for a week or two in the winter. In the fall I will need to remember to bury it.

 

[Travlr]

I had 3 spots that the ditch needed to be clean. Generally we use a ditch plow but these spots were too short, not straight enough, and places you couldn't get a tractor into with the ditch plow. So I rented a mini excavator. I have seen people who are real catty with one of these machines. I am not one of those people. I learned to doing things at an idle and one function at a time works best for me. So I was almost done. I spot some dirt I missed yesterday evening. So sitting at a different angle I reach out and grab it. The machine wouldn't lift or pull it. I finally give up and turned loose. The dirt fell away and there is a slightly smashed black pipe. I get off and look. It is lined up between the house and the spring tank. No water leaking but it sure isn't as round as it once was. Good thing I was just idling the excavator. I wonder why this water line was only 6/8 inches under ground at this point. We don't get terrible cold but we do have sub zero temperatures for a week or two in the winter. In the fall I will need to remember to bury it.

Last time I found something that deep I thought it was a sewer pipe because cracking it sent off a stench... But it was in a place that no sewer pipe should be, so I dug deeper and found out that it was a cooler with a liquified pet dog in it. Until I found the collar, and then a jawbone... I worried that it might have been a missing baby.