Friday, November 21, 2008

Trenching + Rain = Mud

Well, it's been a while since I posted a blog. I've been super busy with some extra hours at work. I haven't blogged, but that doesn't mean there's been no chores.

One of the really big projects that's been on the list is to get water and power out to the horse shelter that I built last year. We found that one of the major drags about winter chores was when the water hose would freeze.


Pre-Dig Power Line from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Lucky for us, the Cowgirl's dad is an electrician. He ran the electrical wires out to the horse shelter and had one of his guys wire the place. He did a nice job and put in a sub breaker box and new light fixtures. It makes a huge difference to have lights all the way around the shelter. He also brought out a trencher that he rented to make things go faster.

One thing we had to figure out is where the water line came into the house. So I was nominated to crawl under the house.



How'd I get This Job? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Theoretically, it should be a pretty straight forward job: make a trench, put the pipe and wires in, then fill it back up with the dirt you took out. We, however, subscribe to the "let's make things more difficult" school of thought. We dug our trench over a stone walkway, our water line, our septic line, and a fence. Nice work Cletus.


So here's how the trencher works.


The rain finally let up for a while, and after a trip to a few hardware stores, we had the plastic water pipe, and frost free water spigot to put by the horse shelter.


Trench project from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

At this point I stopped shooting video because I became entirely covered in mud. We had to dig a little tunnel under the septic line to accept the water pipe, and let's just say, it was a Mud-a-polooza.

I did this stuff about a week later...

Trenching, when will I be done? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


Trenching - Fill from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

We had a to wait a week or so to get all the parts we needed, and The Cowgirl's dad had to bring out his pipe threader, but we finally got it done. Just need to bring in some more fill dirt, and button up the ground. It's not pretty now, but it works great. I'll put some grass seed down next spring in the trench scar, and I'm sure in a year or so, you'll never know the difference.


Worst Project... EVER! from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

See you next time