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Excavators R Us
Sep. 5th, 2008 05:36 pmOkay, not really. We did scrape 1-6" of dirt out of the dry-as-bones basin of the Rachel River, though.
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aequitaslevitas gave me a hand with the digging and sifting. I put the auger bit on the hammer drill, and it whipped stuff up so it was easy enough to scrape out with the transfer shovel.
After clearing a bit, we fiddled with shoving a 20' piece of edging into the neighbor's pipe, to make sure it was clear. It was, andaequitaslevitas tried the other side. As he did so I stood by the wheelbarrow, grabbing a shovel to go dig up some more stuff. At that point, a skunk waddled out of the pipe, came up the bank about a foot away from my foot, turned around, went down the bank, up the other side, and off into the woods between the two driveways.
Meanwhile, Mr. B picks that moment to come running down the driveway to us. I attempt to stop him and keep him out of the way.aequitaslevitas sees the skunk heading into the woods at that moment - he wasn't sure why I was yelling at Mr. B, but until he looked up then he had no idea what was going on. I had aequitaslevitas call Deb so she could close the garage doors - that space might have presented too good an opportunity for a freaked out, out-of-its-element nocturnal animal.
Funny, thing is, while digging, both of us had our feet and shovels right up against the side the skunk came out of - I'm surprised the guy didn't run out the other side, or spray us then.
After that, a few turns of the dirt in the pipe itself did send off a light scent, but nothing uncomfortable or lasting.
I expect the skunk nesting in the pipe - set at a 0 degree incline - added to the problems with it backing up. That, and it's set lower than the bed of the Rachel River, hence the need for excavation. Now we got rid of all the severe wrong-way inclines except for the one immediately at the pipe, and we, at the least, flattened the rest, and, in most places, matched the incline of the road.
I expect if we get any rain from Hanna and it does run off, it will move the remainder of the plug in the pipe and level it out. We'll likely have to repeat this a few times until it runs nicely, with about a quarter of their pipe filled with soil. We can't excavate the entire thing, or there won't be enough drop between their pipe and ours, and we'd risk exposing the buried electrical, phone, and cable lines.
aequitaslevitas gave me a hand with the digging and sifting. I put the auger bit on the hammer drill, and it whipped stuff up so it was easy enough to scrape out with the transfer shovel.After clearing a bit, we fiddled with shoving a 20' piece of edging into the neighbor's pipe, to make sure it was clear. It was, and
aequitaslevitas tried the other side. As he did so I stood by the wheelbarrow, grabbing a shovel to go dig up some more stuff. At that point, a skunk waddled out of the pipe, came up the bank about a foot away from my foot, turned around, went down the bank, up the other side, and off into the woods between the two driveways.Meanwhile, Mr. B picks that moment to come running down the driveway to us. I attempt to stop him and keep him out of the way.
aequitaslevitas sees the skunk heading into the woods at that moment - he wasn't sure why I was yelling at Mr. B, but until he looked up then he had no idea what was going on. I had aequitaslevitas call Deb so she could close the garage doors - that space might have presented too good an opportunity for a freaked out, out-of-its-element nocturnal animal.Funny, thing is, while digging, both of us had our feet and shovels right up against the side the skunk came out of - I'm surprised the guy didn't run out the other side, or spray us then.
After that, a few turns of the dirt in the pipe itself did send off a light scent, but nothing uncomfortable or lasting.
I expect the skunk nesting in the pipe - set at a 0 degree incline - added to the problems with it backing up. That, and it's set lower than the bed of the Rachel River, hence the need for excavation. Now we got rid of all the severe wrong-way inclines except for the one immediately at the pipe, and we, at the least, flattened the rest, and, in most places, matched the incline of the road.
I expect if we get any rain from Hanna and it does run off, it will move the remainder of the plug in the pipe and level it out. We'll likely have to repeat this a few times until it runs nicely, with about a quarter of their pipe filled with soil. We can't excavate the entire thing, or there won't be enough drop between their pipe and ours, and we'd risk exposing the buried electrical, phone, and cable lines.
