The "Excavator" moved onto the site on Saturday and begin dredging the "bowl drainage system". The primary "settling pond" was enlarged to 6' x 8'. A very strange composition of soils was discovered. Just a few inches below the clay that halted the digging process by hand during the summer. A very nice seam of sand and gravel was struck, unfortunately it was only about six inches thick and then it reverted back to a "black" clay that was as hard as rock. The excavator kept going deeper,hoping to find more gravel, however, we could not get out of the clay. The dredging stopped when he reached a depth of six feet.
The next step was to dredge the drain ditch from "John's Glacier". A similar ditch was dredged from the gates to "Grannie's Gulch" to the established drain ditch along the driveway. Although it appears threatening, the drain ditch is only about six inches deep, just enough to get the water to move to the collection point. The "snow plow" and wheel barrow will make short work of the debris and it will be taken to the the pad at the Moose Wallow. The dredged material from the "pit" has already been transported and semi leveled in that area with the bobcat. With some work and material, it will be a good R/V site or a parking pad for the Moose Den. Since the drain ditches are shallow, with a little typar liner and back filled with several pick-up loads of medium size round beach rock, it should work as a "french drain".
I was caught by surprise, I was not expecting to put the new pit to the test until after I had finished the construction of the decking and screening. I also did not realize that it had rained so much and partially mixed with snowed overnight. Upon my arrival at the site this morning, this is what I had discovered. The new pit, despite being five times larger was filled and back flushed up and into the drainage ditch. However, the good news is that no water had back up even close to the fire pit area so the system will work and be very effective once the improvements are made.
Somewhere under this mass of water and leaves, there is a little blue sump pump working to it's maximum performance. With this amount of water, it took exactly two hours to pump it down. Sitting in my lawn chair and monitoring the drop of the water, I came to the conclusion that the acquisition of another 100 feet to 150 feet of 2 inch fire hose is a necessity. I had dismantled all of the piping for the excavation, with fire hose it would have taken five minutes to attached and lay out. My sit down time also provided me time to reevaluate the design of the cover and holding tank. I am going to build it the same way as I finished the pit in the Duck House. A cofferdam is necessary, even with the clay soil as it will erode under the water pressure. The cofferdam will also produce a solid foundation for the cover decking on the pit. It will make a great stage and sun bathing area. Prior to construction, someone is going to have to go into the hole and level the sides and scoop out any erosion that has occurred, for some strange reason, I think it will be me on the end of the shovel this time. I am just holding my breath that winter will hold off so I can finish all the projects, including the water tower.
3 comments:
We have a mote... that will help keep Blue Duck out!
yea, you can go down by the "Little Creek" every night and clean your gun, never know when "Blue Duck" might come riding in.
Just noticed that the door on the Wolf Den is open ~ some vandal went inside and "borrowed" a pair of rubber boots that were to small for them but they wore them anyway. The amount of water caught me un-prepared and I failed to take my hip boots to work.
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