[Previous entry: "Apple Blossom Time"] [Next entry: "Monsoon Season"]

05/10/2010: "Hard Labor"

Well, as I feared, I started on the drainage project a little too early this year. It's going to bite me in the a... uh, well, in a place where no one likes to be bitten, I think. The image above shows the problem; the incessant rain that we've had in April has eroded the trenches quite a bit. During a rainy period the trenches fill up with water, and dirt sloughs off the walls and deposits in the bottom, reducing the depth of the trench.

Last week I set out to grade one of the trenches. It was pretty hard labor with a shovel to get a smooth downhill slope from one end of the first trench to the other end, but after a couple hours I had finished the job for one trench. Net result: about a foot and a half of fall over the 150 feet of trench, which is just about right.

Here is the end result:



I think that for this phase I better get my hose in the trench with the drainage rock, or else by the time I get done tuning up the other trenches this one will be back to a bad state! Timer to order rock, then.