Let the Ditching Commence !

[awemawson]

Very nice Phil, let me know when it's on the way and I'll put the kettle on 

[vtsteam]

Much of the 'stuff in the middle' is actually  Canadian Pond Weed and floating as a mass. I'm going to see if it can be brought to shore with ropes, a float and ingenuity.

What we really need is @VTSteam in his shell kayak !

I'm out of practice, Andrew -- only out rowing once this year. Our own dinky little pond is nearly dry already, hope we're not in for another drought.

[awemawson]

I'm glad to say that the pond dredging is at last finished apart from skimming the floating weed off the surface.

I did a full circuit of the periphery with the JCB 3CX this morning moving the vast majority of the silt and weeds to the 'berm'. This leaves a rather rough finish SO.....


.....  this afternoon did a full circuit again with the JCB 803 which being a '360' allowed me to put some shape in the banks. Overall it's not come out too badly - be better when the banks 'grass up' which they undoubtedly will in the next few weeks.

Glad that this is out of the way - I can now concentrate on the re-laying of the outfall from our Klargester private sewage system, which is totally blocked with roots. The pumped 'clean water' outflow has been run in 2" plastic pipe by the installers (probably 18 years ago) with just the last couple of feet in 4" underground soil pipe with no provision what so ever for rodding. The plan is to re-lay the entire pipe in 4" soil pipe with a rodding eye to avoid this issue in the future. About 10 metres of trench about a metre deep.

I've had a young lad digging a trench for the last couple of days. I suppose I can buy replacement handles for the pick axe and spade that he's broken 

[pycoed]

My son was the same in his teens. After the umpteenth sledge handle he’d broken, I was in the farm store getting a replacement & said to the bloke on the till “This one is really smooth, you don’t have any with bumps & splinters do you?” He looked at me puzzled & said “Why would you want a rough one?”. I replied “’cos if my son breaks this one I’m going to shove it up his *rse!”
Collapse of queue in laughter.

[awemawson]

They say the the job isn't finished until the paperwork is done!


Well the equivalent here is cleaning up the various bits of plant used in the exercise. Very handy having a petrol operated pressure washer and a tap in the field. Washer fits in digger bucket for transport - what more could you ask for. . .

. . . well actually I could ask that previous owners of all three machines had pressure washed them after using concrete. All have bits firmly stuck on and in each case it makes tipping wet clay a bit hit and miss as it sticks to the concrete. I can see I'm going to have to devote a noisy day to cleaning them up with an air chisel - it's one of those little jobs that (so far) keeps not being done.