Seasonal Erosion Control

[slowp]

We may get a bit of rain in the next few days. I grabbed my trusty pulaski and dug out the waterbars. I like the word.....skew. As in skewed waterbars work the best. These are definitely "drivable".

 

[2dogs]

Patty you need to come to California. I have miles of road needing skewed water bars. Heck you can even dig trenches for new culverts, if you want to. The Soberanes fire burned the plastic culverts that were several feet below ground. Now there is just a long hole under the road. We are scrambling to get the roads in shape but we have to wait until this storm passes. Hopefully it will be a light rain but coastal flood watches have just been posted this afternoon.

 

[slowp]

You'll need to let me know when the fire danger is low. My pulaski kept throwing up sparks because my road is well rocked--very well rocked. Or are there no rocks in californy? Ooops, on second thought, my hands did not like hitting rocks with a pulaski and it might be detrimental to my music hobby. Guess you'll have to find somebody else...sorry.

The TV weather people are quite excited because we are in for some kind of a smite, but we do not know where the windiest area will be yet. I hope it is not here. Several inches of rain are supposed to fall also, but that is not unusual.

 

[northmanlogging]

Patty you need to come to California. I have miles of road needing skewed water bars. Heck you can even dig trenches for new culverts, if you want to. The Soberanes fire burned the plastic culverts that were several feet below ground. Now there is just a long hole under the road. We are scrambling to get the roads in shape but we have to wait until this storm passes. Hopefully it will be a light rain but coastal flood watches have just been posted this afternoon.

That is the first good argument I've seen to use metal culverts, otherwise they be just too damned spensive.

I think MissP really needs to go down to Chehalis on the 21st and get herself a dozer, put some proper water bars on that there road.

The current project, is at the top of a rise, yet the access has a 3' deep ditch and a narrow concrete culvert, I'm really not sure where all the water is going to come from for that much ditch... All I know is it makes it a real pain to get the trucks backed in and loaded trailers back on pavement.

It may or may not have a round and some dirt shoved in one side of the culvert to provide additional turning room.

 

[2dogs]

But, but Patty you were my one and only hope. No one else is willing to hand dig water bars. I'll even make cookies for you! Those kind that look like a sugar coated salami and you just slice them off are pretty good if you have enough milk. Or beer.

Yeah Northy we are switching to metal from plastic. Almost all the culverts burned and they were only just over a year old. Rolling dips work better for us.

 

[slowp]

Get a dozer? DANGER. Then I'd want to do stuff with it. More waterbars! Pull or knock trees over! Widen the road! Clean up the mess from widening the road! Then head up the ridge doing "stuff". I'd probably tip over and since I don't smoke, how would I calm down afterwards?

Nope, I'm an unaccomplished violinist/fiddlist now so must protect the hands...

 

[northmanlogging]

you could play yer fiddle while fiddling with the reigns, or not...

Give the grapple cat a run fur its money.

Hire out to your neighbors, call it Patty's Push'n N Pull'n

Retirement is overrated, didn't you get Bob's memo?

 

[slowp]

you could play yer fiddle while fiddling with the reigns, or not...

Give the grapple cat a run fur its money.

Hire out to your neighbors, call it Patty's Push'n N Pull'n

Retirement is overrated, didn't you get Bob's memo?

My neighbors have plenty of equipment. Why on one snowy day, I heard noise and my neighbor was plowing my road because the power was out
and he was bored! I made him cookies.....

 

[northmanlogging]

I used to plow the roads around here, but I think I scare everyone they don't even say thank you... let alone cookies

Bunch of Boing and Prison guards too worried about watching tv to even notice the roads got plowed

 

[slowp]

I used to plow the roads around here, but I think I scare everyone they don't even say thank you... let alone cookies

Bunch of Boing and Prison guards too worried about watching tv to even notice the roads got plowed

They must have generators so they can watch when the power is off. My neighborhood has a lot of people who work or have worked in the woods.
That's a good thing. One guy down the road is an old, old growth faller.

 

[northmanlogging]

less then a minute and there will be 7 generators going, 5 minutes you can hardly hear yourself think.

If its out for more then 4 hours I'll fire up the welder/generator for a couple hours to keep the fridge ticking, but other then that, I just don't care...

So if ya all don't hear from me for the next week or so... We gonna get us some typhoon action up in here tonight... and again on Saturday

 

[slowp]

It blew but nothing exceptional. I slept right through it. My plan for outages is if the power is off longer than 24 hours, triage the freezer and stuff all I can into the Plastic Airstream miniscule freeze compartment. I've also got the trailer water tank filled. I do not own a generator because it's just another piece of stuff taking up space or something a tweeker would want to steal and then you have to store gas for it too which takes up more room. I've got the hot tub full for flush water and water can be "caught" off the shop roof where a lot of water runs off. In fact, that's why I put in waterbars. Rain runs off the shop roof and heads down the road.

I will need to check my waterbars. I drove over them yesterday and it did rain fairly well last night.

 

[sawfun]

Oregon City must have had some rain and a bit of wind last night, breezy today as well.

 

[madhatte]

I kinda liked the waterbars I saw on BLM land in OR in the 90's. Rubber, vertical, sunk 10" or so into the road grade with 2" sticking up. A bit of a bump to drive over but not obnoxious. I've only ever seen them out in the Coast Range.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

40-50mph winds here today. Not anything to write home about though it's not very pleasant working weather. It's about 30*, so around 15* with the wind.

 

[slowp]

I kinda liked the waterbars I saw on BLM land in OR in the 90's. Rubber, vertical, sunk 10" or so into the road grade with 2" sticking up. A bit of a bump to drive over but not obnoxious. I've only ever seen them out in the Coast Range.

There are, or were some of those on the old Burly Mtn. road here. They work well for a while until a grader blade destroys them or they fill up with sediment. My hand built ones have been doing their thing. They are a beast to dig but because they are in rock, they last a while.

 

[madhatte]

They work well for a while until a grader blade destroys them or they fill up with sediment.

Oof, yeah, I can see that.

 

[2dogs]

Those rubber lip water bars are seen on BLM land (at least down here) where the roads are decent and the slope is fairly gentle. Rolling dips don't allow mom and her minivan to take kids to the "wilderness". The blade should see the rubber from far enough away to not cause them any harm.

I have been in meetings and in the field with the USFS and the main subject has been erosion with a little time spent on tree stuff. I just discovered the BAER catalog, going to try to order one tomorrow. I HIGHLY recommend this doc for erosion concerns.

I've also learned to armor the rolling dips with rock. In the past I scraped the edge and install straw bales (wrongly). If the road still exists after this storm I start on new methods and new materials as soon as possible.

More to follow in the next few days. Patty is it cool to make this thread into THE F&L erosion thread? I have lots of questions that you gals and guys can help me with.

 

[2dogs]

One of the prime dope growing areas in the county got 11.45" of rain in this two day storm. I hope it washes their crop away.

 

[slowp]

Yup. If you make a longer rolling dip, you can make the slope more gradual and minivan friendly. That's always been a struggle to get even Subaru friendly drainage built on huckleberry roads here. The builder is usually a believer that bigger is better and it would be if we didn't drive over their artwork. My neighbor smoothed out some bottom scraping water bars and made them very nice for driving. He was going to build them back up after the timer sale but they held up through a couple of winters and still drained so I had him leave them.

I bought some pot cream for achy joints but have not come to a conclusion on its effectiveness.