I finally got around to doing a project that I've been wanting to do for almost 20 years now.....installing culvert pipe and coverting a ditch beside the house that has been a useless piece of our property since I bought the house from my grandparents. I needed parking space for my trailers and a place to process my wood for YEARS now, this space will now be utilized and used almost daily! This ditch has been scraped out and graded several times over the years, from sediment that comes off of the farm. And it has a bed of shale in it already, so it was basically a matter of scraping a belly in the bottom of the ditch and laying in the pipe.... A pic of it before we started.... Scraping out the belly.... Beginning laying the pipe. It's double wall 18" corrogated pipe, the road crew that my buddy works for gets these 10' sections for free because they are throwaways. Huge rolls of landscaping fabric they use come spooled on these 10' sections. I got 95' of pipe for free......I just had to buy the couplings!!! Stubbed in several downspout drain pipes as well as some ground drains from my place and my neighbors place.
Continuing, we put a mix of shale and fines around the pipe to bed it real good. Finalized the grade of it too. Time to backfill it with a mix of slate and clay. Tamped it down real good... Added three inches of shale to the top...
Some more pics of the final grade and shale.....that messy flowerbed you see on the right of the first pic is going to get dug out later this week, that's where our new patio/pizza oven is going!!! Finished the project off yesterday with a curb made from almost 90' of recycled granite pavers from an old RR station from the 1800s that was torn down in our town over 60 years ago. And made a nice drystack wall out of boulders from the mountain by our house at the exit of the pipe. I'm very pleased how it all turned out!
Sure was. Busted arse on it since 10am Friday, didn't get done til dark last evening. Even smashed a finger doing that drystack wall. Every good stonemason has a couple black fingernails!!
Great job! What an improvement over the ditch. Who would have thought it would make such a big difference.... Love the stone work, it really set the whole project off.
Real gooder Scotty. Bobcats are nice when you're doing this kinda' stuff. Makes relatively quick work of it. Possible to build a stone wall around the low spot to create a little pond or something? Don't think I'd do it.....those are skeeter factories, but it's a thought. You could put a little fountain or something in it and stock it with Koi or carp.
That is a possibility. Stay tuned, this whole area of the yard has been eatin' my craw for a long time, big changes a-comin'..... #1 on that list is the patio/pizza oven. That's on deck.....
Wait, I thought it was climbin' trees. Actually, you're a man of MANY talents. Eric, leave that one alone.
Hahaha.......OK, one of them. I wouldn't say I'm "talented". I'm more of what you'd call a "jackarse" of all trades, master of.....well......a few.....
I planned on offering praise, pot stirrer papadave Took the words right outa my mouth.... I was gonna say, "master of many trades!" Really looks great, Scotty
That side of our house is a "shared" right-of-way, that's been reverted back to me and my neighbors next door. They've been very good about letting me use their half of the R-O-W for my wood processing activities as well as parking my truck and trailers there. I've been wanting to convert that ditch into a usable landing for decades. This way, if they ever sell their house, I'll still have a driveway/processing area there....
Im sure Ive been past your house or even worked on some of your neihbors lines. But for the life of me just cant picture that area. Regardless, nice project.
Excellent work. That stone would make a real nice base for your oven. I'll be looking forward to that project.
You may very well be coming down to do some work soon....there's an ash tree just out of these pics that needs to come down, and it's a tree that's actually tensioning the phone and cable lines. Once I take it down, those lines will be sagging to within 6' of the ground. I've been after both the cable and phone co. about this leaning pole for YEARS, each one says the other is responsible...lol.
