Yesterday, with the temperatures being in the mid 60's here, I decided to once again tackle the ditch in front of my place, cleaning it up, and smoothing it out. Mind you I did hire the basics be done a short time ago with a guy that does snow removal and cleans up driveways. But the ground was frozen a little way down so he did the best he could. Needless to say the ditch needs some healthy work done. So I needed a rake that would withstand my abuse, one with a fiberglass handle instead of the wood ones I usually get. They never last as I break those handles no matter how stout they are. I ventured into town to the local hardware store to pick one up. It has a nice fat fiberglass handle and everything else about it seems to be heavy duty. While waiting in line to check out, an older lady was in the process of, but there was a delay because she had no cash and the place she was making the purchase for (a local charity) had no account there. I originally thought that it was for the two keys she had made, so unknowingly I piped up and said I would pay for it. The clerk and the customer were both surprised and indicated the amount was much greater than it seemed. The lady had picked up a dolly of some kind to the tune of $125 plus tax. (they forgot to include the keys, so I'll go back either today or tomorrow to pay for them) So I thought for a moment to calculate what I had left in my checking account. Yep, there was enough to cover both her and my purchase, so I still said I would cover it. A donation if you will. So she left happy as a lark. And I had my rake. I ended up cleaning up about 75 feet of the ditch with the worst of the ditch yet to come. Even filled in a dip in the road with some of the gravel and dirt I had pulled from the ditch. I still need to add more to bring it to where it needs to be. After a few hours, I took a break. While I was sitting there, a dump truck pulling a backhoe went through. Instead of his staying on the road, decided to run over all of my 4 foot reflective snow stakes, not paying attention to just how close I was to the road. I almost cried, not that I was almost hit, but that some of the stakes were broken. I did end up doing a little more work, but I just don't have the upper body strength and my arms were feeling like lead. I chose to do the cleanup now in order to get in condition to climb two 100 foot pine trees by the road. One single stem and one double. I intend to top them first and limb them on the way down. Then fell them. I figure since I don't have climbing spikes, that would be the best route to follow. I do have a safety harness I will be using while in the trees though, and plenty of rope to rappel down as I go. The rope will also assist the trees to fall where I want them as well. Straight felling them is not an option since there are many young western arborvitae on one side and the road on the other. I figure on felling them into the ditch. So if your driving on some backwoods country dirt road, BEWARE. There just might be someone up in a tree getting ready to drop the top near the road! Both of the trees are dying so it's just a matter of time anyway. At least this way it will be a controlled fall.
Can we presume the house is to the left? That's a lotta hand work. The county comes out every few years and carves out the ditches here. We're due.
Yep, the house is up and to the left. The county never comes around to dig out the ditches. But they are real good at helping them fill in as well as the multitude of potholes in the road a couple of times a year. By then if I don't do something myself the potholes become large enough to swallow cars, pickup trucks, and tractors. I suppose I could just let them go between the times the plow comes through, but I want my property to look nice from the road on back. So I have around 225 feet or road and ditch I try to maintain besides working on my property.
very nice job, we maintain our 400 foot frontage also. the town does a good job at everything else, but I rather keep my ditch clean and pretty, even do across the street. Careful up in those trees
Star Gazer, would it be possible for you to put up guard rail. I am thinking 4 by 4 bolted on posts. At least if they hit it the would have to repair their equipment would teach them to be careful..
I intend to eventually take care of the ditch the other side of the road, but right now it's such a mess, it would take me the rest of spring and well into summer to clean it up. My original intention when I hired the guy to come in with the plow was to provide drainage on both sides of the road with an angle cut of about 15 degrees. Then I'd be able to clean it up with nothing but a rake. Well, all I can say is it's going to need a lot of shovel and rake time. On my side, it's not nearly as bad and hopefully I should be done in a week, weather permitting. But it's still a lot of shovel and rake work. The weather service is calling for 4 days of rain starting Saturday (subject to change at a moments notice) It would really be nice if the county would take care of this road on a regular basis, but I don't see it happening even in the distant future. They usually mow it once a year, come through with the plow for potholes twice a year, and whatever it takes for snow. But even that is limited. Most of the time the farmers in the area plow the road to keep it open. It is possible that I could start on the trees sometime next week. I will most definitely be careful involving those or any other trees. Even more so when I'm up in them. Once I have just the main stems left, then I get to bring out the big (to me anyway) saw. The Stihl MS361. It'll have to wear the 24" bar and chain since both trees are about 24 inches across.
While that might work, I would have my doubts. I'd probably witness the 4x4's be turned into toothpicks. I have thought about stopping the dump truck the next time I see it since it seems to come through on this road frequently and talk to the driver. Maybe even have him pay for the stakes that were broken. It's not as though they are that expensive (about $2.50 each) but maybe if he has to pay for them he might think twice before he does it again.
Actually, I do have two video's of the dump truck with the backhoe in tow, running over the 4' fiberglass snow markers. I have another at a different angle showing where I'm sitting and how close he came to me while he was concentrating on hitting the markers. I figure if something happens to me, at least there is a video that shows what happened.
I'll be fine. That's why I'm working on getting in condition so that when I do climb them, I should be able do the job without issue. Yesterday I shoveled and raked for about 3 hours. Today I made it to 4.5 before my arms turned to lead. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
I'm starting to think I made the wrong choice to get into shape for skittering up those trees. Shoveling and raking hard packed clay, dirt, and gravel is OMG hard! Part of the process includes going through part of my old driveway which I had blocked off. Rough stuff! I did make some good headway today though. And I managed to put in 5 hours, so 30 minutes more than yesterday. I made it to the two thirds point, so it's one third more to go. That is on my side of the road.
I didn't do squat today. Well, I did, but what I did do didn't amount to squat. This morning I hurt in so many places, but I did give it a try anyway. I figured maybe everything would loosen up. But an hour and a half later they were the same as I began the morning with. However, I did get some pictures after several attempts. The sun kept washing out any details plus some. As a refresher, here is how 2/3rds of the area started: This is what it looks like finished: A view from the other end: From the other end at the 1/3rd point. This section has a 2 inch drop every 10 feet. The wet area is where a spring is breaking the surface near the arborvitae, and that area is the location of the old driveway which I dropped several inches. The rock in the foreground was where I was sitting when the dump truck with a backhoe in tow came through. And finally a sample of the broken fiberglass snow markers. They may all be standing, but they are mostly broken at the base. All of them uprighted themselves with the exception of one. That one I ended up finishing the break and re inserting it into the ground. And perhaps this is why everything hurt this morning. Anticipation! That last picture is what I will likely be working on starting tomorrow.
Now I'm thinking with those two pines, is to just climb them to about 70 feet, and limb them from there on down. Topping them might prove to be a bit risky and at least this way I will have some control where it lands. I figure if I give the arborvitae about a foot clearance most of the tree will end up in the ditch. And limbing them that high will also keep the arborvitae from being damaged by the branches from the pines.
Once I have the trees felled, and everything cleaned up, I will also be spreading some grass seed in the ditch and cover it with straw once the threat of freezing has passed.
