Spring Training

ferguson said:
Oh, by the way 4'X4'x27' = 432 cubic feet of dirt

At an average weight of 90 pounds per cubic foot, that's

38,880 pounds!
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Well, least I been sleeping good lately. ;)

Fence Kis? You betcha, been studying up on that. Learned a neat trick for whitetails. Fence only needs to be about four foot high chicken wire to keep the little critters out, and strung around the top you run a single wire electric fence for the deer. Then you just "train" them. Turn off the transformer, and smear the whole wire good with some creamy peanut butter. Turn the transformer back on, and when Mr. Bambi comes to call he's in for some edumacatin'. Sounds mean, but don't really hurt 'em as much as it scares some sense into 'em, and sure beats "more drastic measures". And yes, I know about hair clippings, hot pepper, and such, got a buddy out in Lampasas that's tried everyone of them. He finally settled on the .357 Colt Python solution. :(

Howard, good points on the safety perspective. A definite plus of this dig is that it's an open ended "walk thru" affair, no ladders, or climbing in and out(otherwise I couldn't do it, had an "incident" in an abandoned bunker in Desert Storm, one of those that'll give a fellow bad dreams, been a touch claustrophobic ever since and that's all I'll say about it). The soil is packed clay, pretty solid and stable, and there's no significant precipitation that could cause shifting or settling in the forecast. Still, you can bet I'll pay attention and be careful.

Blow it in place DD? During one of my "trips abroad" I got to hang out with the EOD boys a bit (good guys, but absolutely certifiable) and help make things go away that didn't need to be there anymore. I've handled det cord, C-4, time fuse and caps. No thanks, I'm a civilian now, you couldn't get me anywhere near stuff like that for love or money. Besides big booms would scare away all the nice birds that so kindly sing to me as I work (not to mention landing me in jail with a 300 lb. roommate named Bubba). ;)

Sarge
 
cliff355 said:
Sarge:

I did me some hand diggin for the Phone Company a few decades ago, and one day an OSHA guy stopped by and threw a huge wrench into our procedures. According to him a ditch has to be 3 feet wide for every foot deep or you risk getting squashed by a cavein. We had to switch to a backhoe for that job and the foreman was not amused. I wonder if the Army worries about that. Pictures I have seen of WWI trenches didn't look like they complied with OSHA.
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So a six foot deep ditch would wind up being eighteen feet wide. I couldn't dig a ditch that huge without calling in an airstrike. :rolleyes: :D

Sarge
 
Sylvrfalcn said:
My friend, who owns the property on which our archery range is located, has a small problem. Adjacent to the range is a small pond (more like a hole in the ground, as it actually doesn't keep water in it) that has a tendency to overflow and flood the archery range during heavy rains. On the south end of the "pond" is an earthwork dam that has no spillway, etc., to accomodate the overflow. So, the decision was made to install a culvert pipe through the dam. However, lacking the funds to have a construction company bring in a backhoe, that's about as far as it's gotten. Until now. Going fishing the other day must have awoken the dormant country boy in me, because now I have a powerful craving to plant tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, et cetera, and have some fresh homegrown stuff on the table to go with the fish, squirrels, rabbits, and such that come out of the skillet/stew pot.
I told my friend that if he would be so kind as to allow me to plant a small "herb garden" on his property, I would make his flooding problem go away. Got started last week, and five days of hand digging 3-4 hours a day has yielded a ditch 27 foot long, by 4 foot wide, by 4 foot deep. Big enough, but still not deep enough (needs to be 6 1/2 feet deep), but no worries, the culvert pipe doesn't arrive until next Friday, and I'll be ready for it. :D
Retired life was making me soft and lazy, and I don't like that, but swinging a pick and shovel in that kolichi clay is sure helping me get back on track. My calluses are coming back, my muscles are coming back, and it would seem my spirit is coming back. Hard work, fresh air, earth below and sky above, bees buzzing, birds singing, snakes slithering, rabbits hopping. It is good. My seeds are all planted, and soon the young sprouts will burst forth in a cycle as old as time itself. Welcome springtime, pics to come. ;)

Sarge
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Over here we call that a Bi-pass.

Joke aside nice that you are getting a good workout.

Maybe I shall start doing some push-ups tomorrow...:rolleyes:
 
OSHA once came by my job site and fined the company a few thousand because we weren't using a safety ladder to climb in and out of a three foot deep hole.:rolleyes:
 
My uncle had his pelvis crushed in a cave-in of a ditch. He jumped in and threw his co-worker out but it got him. He lived with the complications of that injury until he died.

I'm not sure simple rules work. A lot depends on the soil type and conditions. The OSHA references I gave go into that, as well as shoring techniques. OSHA may seem like a PITA, but there are reasons for what they do and our US workers are consequently safer than workers in many other countries.
 
I very often consider OSHA to be a total PITA, but....They are a very, very necessary PITA, and I wouldn't want to perform the labor I do without them.

Some of the stuff like I've cited above is pretty insipid, but I shudder to consider what field work as a whole would be like without 'em.

Besides, when it's all said and done, I'm paid by the hour. If the OSHA inspector wants me to jump up and down on one foot and rub my tummy and head at the same time while singing "Home on the range" it aint doin' nuthin' but fattening my paycheck...They...uhmm...have never asked that of me....yet...:D
 
Sylvrfalcn said:
So a six foot deep ditch would wind up being eighteen feet wide. I couldn't dig a ditch that huge without calling in an airstrike. :rolleyes: :D

Sarge
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Yeah I kinda wonder about that too. I mean, in our line of construction we dig all kinds of holes to varying depth and width. Most of them are over 18' wide, but taper to at least 8-9.5'. I have never, ever, ever seen a cave in at any of our jobs. My father might have, but i doubt it. I know OSHA is there to keep people safe, but sometimes a line has be drawn where good safety practices meet babysitting goofballs that shouldn't be doing that line of work. Now I could see the need for some kind of support for a 4' wide ditch going 8 feet or something, but if that was what I was after, then i'd just call in a backhoe:D My dad used to make me dig 4' wide by 2' deep ditches to lay the plumbing even if the backhoe would fit in there. Character builder, he called it. Smart guy, my dad...in a hard @$$ed sort of way;)

Jake
 
I've never done much ditch digging, but I must have done about a thousand fence post holes. I remember one hole for a 6"X6" fence post in rocky soil that took me a full day to dig, but that was in 1972 and the post is still there. ;)

Norm
 
Post hole diggers, razzin frazzin frickin frazzin post hole diggers :grumpy: Thanks for reminding me Norm, when I get done putting in the culvert I gotta get started digging post holes for the fence around my garden. No shortage of healthy outdoor exercise (and I couldn't be more tickled) :D

Sarge
 
Steely_Gunz said:
My dad used to make me dig 4' wide by 2' deep ditches to lay the plumbing even if the backhoe would fit in there. Character builder, he called it. Smart guy, my dad...in a hard @$$ed sort of way;)

Jake
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When I worked for my grandpa one summer plumbing I learned quick enough that he insisted on a ditch at least 2-1/2 shovels wide
minimum and 3 shovels wide in easy digging dirt.
Said he had to have room to work.:rolleyes: I didn't see the need for a 21 foot long ditch to be that wide as he wasn't going to do anything except on each end of the joint of pipe.
But I dug 'em the way he wanted anyway and soon learned the wisdom of the extra wide ditches.;)
What I really, really, hated to dig though were those damned ol' lateral lines that had plugged up.
I'd rather crawled under a house with a dead dog, cat, and a couple of dead toads than I had dig up a crappy lateral line!!!!:thumbdn: :barf: :barf: :barf: :barf: :barf: :thumbdn:
 
The only thought that went through my mind when I read the first post was............where's my massage therapist.:D

I'm glad you're having fun........when's the harvest party:confused: The fall Texas Khukuri Khon:D ;)
 
mamav said:
The only thought that went through my mind when I read the first post was............where's my massage therapist.:D

I'm glad you're having fun........when's the harvest party:confused: The fall Texas Khukuri Khon:D ;)
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Hey where's Maui !?? ;) :p
 
One fringe benefit I haven't mentioned is that I've dug up some good clay of a quality that'll make fine adobe. That was the last link in the chain I needed to build a washtub forge ala Tim Lively (check it out http://64.176.180.203/washtubforge.htm ). Won't be long before I can forge some pretty good sized knives. Yowzir :D

Sarge

p.s.: Harvest party Gin? Reckon that'll be ongoing considering the long growing season here. BTW, in my scrounging around in the forest, cutting shoots for the pipestems of my homemade pipes, I found a nice, big, Spanish plum tree. Got the underbrush cleared from around/underneath it with a machete and a weed whip. It's wondrously budded out, and already starting to open up beautiful white blossoms. They're nice looking trees, and pleasingly fragrant when in full bloom. Come about July I reckon we'll be putting up some wild plum jelly. :D
 
Well folks, the culvert pipe's in place, the ditch is filled back in, and you could pour what's left of me through a tea strainer. That's okay, Ajax and a Brillo pad wouldn't wipe the grin off my face, and after a bit of hot chili and cold beer I'll be fit to wrassle alligators again. Friends who showed up to help this morning were mightily puzzled by the several hundred pound culvert pipe's (yup, it's a big'un, two foot diameter) "migration" from the spot it was unloaded off the truck, to it's position in the ditch. They asked, "how in the he&& did you move that thing around by yourself like that?". My answer would have made my knuckleheads proud, "by believing that I could". ;)

Sarge
 
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