Tag Archives: ditch digging

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A man and his ditch.

24 Comments

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My husband is not happy.

Not in any way, shape, or form.

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Every time he goes outside he gravitates to the hideous Grand Canyon we now have at the edge of our property.

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Talk about an eyesore. People are literally walking by with their mouths open. A few have even stopped in to ask… why?

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What a mess. And aside from the fact they took a good two feet of our lawn? They couldn’t even be bothered to do it uniformly, and that rankles.

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Let’s forget that it looks like a giant gaping maw…the whole purpose of the project was to stop the caving in and erosion.

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See the stripes? That’s what happened after the first rain. All the seed and hay flowed to the bottom…

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And we had intermittent washouts. Which is exactly what we had before.

It’s maddening.

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In case you’re wondering, it’s three feet in that spot. In some places it’s three and a half. Won’t that be fun to mow…

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Assuming we can ever get grass to grow there again.

Sigh…

😫

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Life’s a ditch… the nightmare result.

40 Comments

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After arguing with state officials for a month and pleading with them to let us fill in our collapsing ditch, this was their answer.

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A veritable Marianas trench at the end of our front lawn.

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It’s huge.

More than twice as wide than it was.

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It’s ugly.

A massive scar on the landscape.

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See the gravel? They were supposed to replace that with dirt and seed it.

They didn’t.

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See the sloping sides on which the temporary mailbox they refused to move sits? They were supposed to build those up so they wouldn’t collapse.

They didn’t.

This is worse than it was before.

A total nightmare.

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Life’s a ditch… part 3.

18 Comments

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The final part of this nightmare project was a total waste of time.

Remember the dry grass seed the crew spread, and then dispersed with a leaf blower?

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Up next was the hay tube.

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I knew it would be bad, and it didn’t disappoint.

Or rather it did. It was all disappointing….

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Dry hay particles , on a windy day.

What could go wrong?

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The air was choked with the stuff.

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Sigh….

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Life’s a ditch… part two.

19 Comments

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Later that afternoon the crew moved to the other side of the property. After much deliberation, discussion and dawdling.

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It was smooth sailing until the time came to replace the culvert over what we call the auxiliary driveway.

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Where massive roots from the neighbor’s old weeping willow trees were proving problematic.

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This was cause for more serious discussion, deliberation and dawdling.

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Turns out our two neighbors to the left were also getting new culverts.

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Surprise!

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And if you’re wondering how many state DOT workers it takes to stand around and watch one of them tamp down dirt?

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The answer is nine.

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Though when it came time to smooth the dirt by hand? They all disappeared.

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Some gathered beside a trailer, surrounding the temporary mailbox they wouldn’t move.

🥴

To he continued…

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Life’s a ditch.

12 Comments

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As you know, the state of Maine decided to dig out the ditch in front of our house… even though we wanted to fill it in.

The head mucky muck said they would call my husband and give him fair warning when the crew would arrive so he could plan to be here during the process.

You know where I’m going with this right?

On the very day my husband ended his (unhappy) retirement and went back to work at the office?

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Yeah.

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Bright and early at 6:45am, with no warning whatsoever.

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I scrambled to get dressed and went out to talk to the crew, trying to explain the problems we’d been having. No one cared. Their instructions were to dig out a ditch and that’s what they were going to do.

I told them about the temporary mailbox situation and said it was too heavy for me to move, but could they please drag it out of the way when they shored up the sides of the ditch.

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As you can see…

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That did not happen.

They went right around it.

WTF?

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It was a noisy, dirty day at Casa River and I knew all they were doing was making the ditch worse. The carefully tended grass on top?

Gone.

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But look, they spread some dry seed.

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Which they then dislodged with a leaf blower.

Again… WTF?

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In the bottom of the ditch, they spread a rolled line of hay like fiber.

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What that’s supposed to do I have no clue.

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They dug and they swept, but if you look closely they did nothing to build up the sides of the ditch or the top which is what caused the caving in problem in the first place.

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To be continued…

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