I had been dreading doing this one just because I would have to trench 350 feet through the woods and there are some big trees with BIG roots. I cleared it out with the Bigger M5660 Kubota bucket and 6 hook root ripper. The Ripper did a decent job of pulling most of the annoying little roots out and by making the trench looking like a drunk following a snake doing the work I avoided the worst of the big oak roots. A stright shot would have saved me 100 feet of pipe and electric cable but would have taken forever to bust and cut my way through the roots The primary purpose of the trenching was to run a main water line to the new house from where the main line was capped off at the East Pasture Gates. From Gates to the Top of the Pond Point is 1366 feet. I got a couple estimates from Pro Trenchers if I decided to hire it done........... $12,700 and $9,400 were where they came in just for the trench. Renting a Trencher that would cut through the woods was not cheap either at $425 per day. I figured me and the little BX backhoe could get it done with 3 days of digging. Got it done in 2 1/2 days and finished rolling the electric cable out and putting all of the pipe together last night. Ran the cable on one side of the trench and the water line on the opposite. Pressure and leak tested the water lines last night before capping the line and calling it a day. No Leaks and the pressure came in at 57PSI Not great but considering the end of the pipe is 1600 feet from the water main and feeds 6 branch off lines and 9 hydrants........ I will take 57PSI. Got the line into the house by digging a foot under the concrete pad and drilling a 1" diameter hole into the tunnel below. Won't have to worry about a frozen water line where it comes into the house that way. I didn't feel like finding on of my big corded hammer drills to do one hole, so used a hammer bit on one of the little cordless drills. I was impressed it only took 3 minutes to bore through 4" of concrete with it. If I were doing a lot of holes I would have broke out one of the big corded drills, they do the same hole in about 45 seconds. A 3/4" PvC Pipe fits snuggly through a 1" concrete bit hole. Slapped a ball valve on the inside pipe and moved on. Using 4/2 cable for the electric out to the Pond Point. I still need to dig over from the main trench to the house wall and put the cable in a conduit and weather head. I need to run the 4/2 on either a 60amp or 70amp breaker and I know have them somewhere but be damned if I can find those breakers right now. Fortunately I left one of the 100amp breakers in the box! I can run on a 100 amp until I find or get a 70amp breaker. When the house was a dirt floor barn and fix it shop I had the electric service to it bumped up to a 600amp service and it was the electric hub for all of the buildings within a couple hundred feet of it. So I had 100 and 50 amp breakers going to breaker boxes in those buildings. LOL a 600amp breaker box is not cheap but was needed for sending power all of the different directions I needed to go for the business stuff before I retired. Now days it is just a little bit overkill. But it does give like 400amps of options One of those options is the electric out to the pond point. I have two just barely above the surface islands like this on in the big pond with 6' feet deep water around this on and 8 feet deep around the other. I have two 5500GPH pond pumps that I need electric to power to make a couple of geyser fountains to not only look cool but to oxygenate the water. As expected the Big Pond is struggling with Oxygen running a weak 3.5-3.8ppm it needs to be at least 5ppm and ideally 7.5-8ppm for the fish. If it goes under 3ppm fish will start dying. The lake and little pond are fine running 6-7ppm with just the wind and waves keeping them oxygenated. The Big pond being hidden with a over height dam and Mount Krap blocking the wind = no wave action = low oxygen. Low Oxygen also = the algae growth you see in the picture. No need for skimmers or copper sulfate, just increasing the dissolved oxygen in the water will keep the algae under control. Once the breaker box and outlets are installed I will get the fountains going and a week later the algae will be cleared up and that brownish red color will clear up as well. That color is from the Co2 and Nitrogen in the water being out of balance with the Oxygen. I try to keep the water chemistry in balance as naturally as I can but until the cattails are going and the submerged aquatic plants are established and making Oxygen, I am going to have to compensate with mechanical oxygenation. Why not used submerged air bubblers/diffusers. I just don't like them I have nothing against them, I just prefer fountains, waterfalls and running streams. A Fountain and a Bubble do the same thing and create the same amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. Which flavor you use is just subjective personal taste. LOL for me old habits die hard, I spent a lot of years building ponds and streams when I owned the Landscape Company and still have a fetish for the ornamental ponds and streams and flowing water worked a lot better in my designs than forced air bubblers did. The big pond is SUPER KRAPPY'S Fortress of Solitude, I am greedy and only share it with my wife and dogs. NO ONE else is allowed near the big pond!!! Friend, family and guest are welcome to enjoy the lake, but the Big Pond is 100% where I can go and nothing can disturb me. I spent most of my life in the service of County and Other people, building and maintaining nice things for other people, producing food for other people. When I retired in 2020 It hit me just how much I had done and given for other people and very damned little for myself. LOL I sold the T Bones and Ribeyes and ate the shank and round myself only now and then eating my Ribeys and T Bones. I still eat the shank and round but enjoy the T Bones and Ribeyes a whole lot more often now I finished up the pipe last night, pulled my folding chair off the tractors and grabbed my cooler and sat here watching the sun set and enjoying a couple of beers in the watching with my dogs sitting on either side of me. From my perspective life just does not get any better than moments like this.
You're a damned workhorse for sure ,,, I sure wish I had your energy. I'm not knitpicking your work at all ,, but if you have the room , I'd try to put some kind of sleeve thru that concrete ,, I've run across pipes that have wore a hole in them just from the vibration of the pipe from the water running thru it . Of course it may take years for that to happen. It's good to hear things are going well enough that you can get back to your projects . I just got home to day from the coast , moved another load of tools and belongings home ,, I have 1 more trip and I'll be done there . Got home and started assessing my projects ,, and I've got a full time job here . But somehow,, 2 weeks ago when I was wrapping everything up ,, I started get calls for work at home. I was hoping to have a little time off ,, but don't guess that's gonna happen. Gotta meet an Engineer and homeowner in the morning for a 2 story home addition ,, got another new home build to look at ,, and 4 or 5 smaller home repair jobs . I better start eating my Wheaties,, I'm about to get busy ,,, again . Sure does make ya feel good when you can do the work yourself and save the kind of money you're fixing to save yourself .
Just a note here: If you are running a Utility Ditch, between two buildings, I would bury a couple of lengths of Direct Burial Cat 5, or 6 in the ditch before I reburied it… Wire is cheap, but adding it afterwards, is a real PIA.. Doing this lends the ability to add wired IP Cams, and other Security infrastructure, down the road, or other Comms Systems, without having to, use wireless systems, that give away their presents, with telltale RF Signitures…
Liquid tape id my friend Acts as a shock absorber and bonds the pipe to bore hole. Start getting over a certain distance it is easier just to dig a new trench I left the power lines and Gas lines in when I removed the buildings that were down there around the house. If I ever decide to move more portables in I will just place or build where the existing ends are. I have terrible luck running the internal phone lines, sat lines and cam lines alongside the power cables. Every Time I do the phones are nothing but static and the screens are snow. And the Sat spends eternity searching for a signal.
Between the BX22E and the BX25D those two little tractors and their backhoes have paid for themselves and are so far into the black with money saved. The BX22E is getting OLD and has 8500 hours on it but keeps on chugging along. I pretty much just use it for the tiller, box blade, a little 4' bushhog and the mid mount mower and leave the 3pt on. The Newer (2012) BX25D I just leave the backhoe on all of the time. Gets old fast switching from backhoe to 3pt. Knew I took a pic with 3 of the 4 Tractors in it. One more year and Oliver Turns 50 Years Old. He is going for a in frame and a fuel system rebuild in November. We shall not speak of the hours that I have abused him with. I have been driving Oliver since I was like 9 years old LOL.
LOL Wait until there is some moisture in the ground! Between the baked clay and the roots that trench through the woods was like digging through reinforced concrete.
Side note don't go cheap on the hydrants! I had a stretch where I tried the no name hydrants the box stores, RK and TSC sell and within a year had to dig 4 of the 6 up and replace them with Quality Iowa's. While running the new water line to the house I replaced all of no name hydrants with Iowa's and added 4 more....... One can never have too many Hydrants Mrs Krap does not complain much about my guns...... She did get deep into my ears about eight new Iowa's at $160 per Some say I do my hydrants all wrong, some say I do them right. I go from the bottom of the hydrant hole to level with the surface with 3" rock the same diameter as the 10" thick ring of concrete I top them with. I use 55 gallon chemical barrels cut off at each line on the barrels for a concrete form. Four 60 pound bags of quickcrete fills the ring. If you want to remove the ring after the concrete has set....... It is a lot easier if you paint the inside with old used motor oil right before you pour the concrete in. I am lazy and just leave the rings on for all time. COugh and make sure there are no leaks and that the hydrant works properly before putting all of that rock around it and topping it with concrete LOL. Very rare but even I Iowa or other high quality domestically manufactured hydrant can be defective.... Very rare but it does happen. I can get away with 24" trenches here deepest it has ever frozen is 10" down after 2 weeks of very rare sub zero temps. I dig the hydrant holes 36" deep and make a U in the water line with a T pointing up to install the hydrant on. Given how saturated the ground here gets during mud season I am not taking any chances with the frost valve not draining and cracking the hydrant pipe or head. Coop Got all up my backside about removing little trees around the Boxes and informed me that was their job. So I stopped removing the saplings 12 years ago. Pretty amazing how big and how much diameter a willow tree can get over 12 years LOL. They can just be mad at me but the tree had to go it was pushing the box off of the pedestal and broke the pedestal in half with the roots. I cut it off and busted up and ripped as many roots out as I could without risking pulling on their cables with the roots wrapped around them. That is my 600amp service box and can't afford to have it lose power over a willow tree. Where the new water line began at the East Pasture Gates. It was easier to cut across the North East Corner of the woods/winter pen than to go North and make a 90 degree turn going West down the House road. LOL also gave me the motivation to cut up the post oak crowns and move the firewood to the splitting area.......... And as a bonus I found my old cut off stumps that make great seating when I want to take a break! Going to take all of the old fence off the T post and replace it with new field fence. Picked up ten 330' roles of 52" field fence for $89 per roll that our most incompetent RK in the Nation mis priced..... They forgot to put the 2 in front of the 89. Manager let me have it at the $89 since that is what it was priced at what it rang up as. But she was out there correcting the error before I even started loading the rolls on the trailer. LOL tell my friend that is the operations manager at another store when he asked "Why do you keep shopping at the other store?" He shakes his head and says "Yeah were are not that store!" Sad thing is the Manager at the incompetent store.... Is more like a Day Care for 4 year olds with her management team. Anyway I need to replace a lot of the old fence, the hogs were real hard on it over the years. And have 3300 feet of really cheap decent quality fence to replace it with. Going to run the new fence with the new water line outside of the fence and cut that corner in the background out of the pasture equation. I have already taken the hog nursery pen/pasture apart on the opposite side of the NW Corner fence and mowed the 8' tall weeds it grew up in down. I think I am going to redo it and the corner with chain link and a chicken wire roof over the whole thing. Hey it is fun watching the Hawks dive on a chicken and hit the chicken wire and bounce The now and then Eagles bounce even better than the hawks do LOL. I only have 50 hens and 5 roosters now days, so that would give them a Big Area to peck around in and not kill everything inside the pen. I gave up on buying the Chain Link Panels they got way to expensive. A lot cheaper to buy the long pipes and use the pipe bender on them and rolls of 6' tall chain link and build them myself. Cost about 35% less building them than buying them pre made. I lose 3-4 every year during storms with limbs and the occasional tree fall across them. And save the hardware from the smashed ones to build the new panels. Part of living under the trees is big limbs and trees fall in the big storms and well when 50" Diameter oak blows over, it pretty much destroys anything it touches. This one is the remains of the farrowing sheds. The Tree has been removed and the logs rolled off. Can see the main trunk log behind the smashed stuff. That was a seriously BIG TREE! Going to pile bush on and around the pile and just torch it rather and trying to untangle all of the boards from the metal. I dragged all kinds of tree and limb smashed Krap out of the fence row that some how accumulated over the last 16 year. Everything from smashed tin and hay rings to a stack of 10' long 3/4" rebar with 30 rods in it the stack that I totally forgot I had. I built a side kit for the GN Trailer and am going to load all the metal onto it after I smash it completely flat and haul all of the eye sores to the scrap yard over the next 3 Months. LOL I have like $5000 worth of scap metal piles I never had time to get rid of. And probably another $2500 in Aluminum Cans and copper I have salvaged. I don't even know how many 55 gallon drums I have filled with smashed cans anymore. At least I hauled to old massey to the scrap yard. It was at deaths door, it had hairline cracks all over the transmission housing and got to where you filled the hydraulic oil up and checked the fuel. It was a 1976 and I bought it in 1998 for $1000 and had around $3000 into it in rebuilding various things on it over the years it served as the main tractor. Can't say it was ever a great tractor but it got the jobs done for 25 years. LOL the bucket got to where I just had nothing left to weld together and reinforce. I knew when I unloaded the last load of round bales that it was going to break for the last time. Between the bucket breaking, the tranny housing and the PTO completely shot....... I called it dead. LOL but I did manage to get the last 3 bales off with it in the condition you see the bucket in here. Sold the back tires for $1000 for the pair and got $1400 in iron scrap price for the rest of it. I bought the Kubota M5660 to replace the Massey when it finally died. Half the HP but the same lift capacity and twice the pulling power than the old massey ever had. And by the time I got done buying quick connect attachments and implements for the M5660 it was a whole lot more than the Massey cost $39,750 for the tractor and loader and another $13,000 in stuff to hook to it. Oliver can still pull the big 70-110hp implements but doesn't have a loader with a quick connect. And Oliver uses a whole lot more fuel than the Kubota M5660. And here is a elite Squirrel Empire Ninja spying on me! Don't be fooled! He might look all innocent and cute but he is a highly trained operative observing human activities to take the info back to Squirrel Empire Command to use when they begin their anti human offensive! Between the Squirrel Empire and their allies the Chipmunk Conclave and the Ground Hog Guild of Burrowers I am starting to get uneasy
