01Sep2017: Ditching

This evening I spent about 90 minutes in the rain with a hoe, working on drainage from Reggae's to the power cut and partway down Pond road.  The cuts I made were shallow and temporary, but served to divert most of the rainwater off the roads.  It is easier to dig when it's raining.  The water softens the dirt and carries the diggings away.

We need to install real waterbars in the places I scratched grooves, and improve the ditches so water is not kicked into the wheel ruts.

It was too dark to take pictures at the time.  These photos were taken the next day on Red Tail Run:

This is Red Tail Run near Reggae's culvert, below the washout from earlier this year.  Water was running down the west wheel rut and making a big puddle in the road over the culvert.  This groove diverted water from the rut into the ditch.  It had to be here because the berm is low.  For most of this stretch of road, there is high ground between the wheel rut and the ditch.  In some places, the rut is actually lower than the ditch.  Water can only be diverted into the ditch in the places where the berm is low, or at the top.

The berm is too dense for compaction (tried it).  It could be cut down with a tractor and blade, but the ditch would need to be deepened in turn.  I think it's better long term to:

1. Build waterbars to divert the water in the two locations shown here.
2. Build the wheel ruts up with ABC gravel and the plate compactor.

This is the top of the same ditch, just below Jack&Lori's driveway.  Before July, no rainwater went into the ditch here.  Tractor work in July cut down the area between the blue lines about half the water went in the ditch.  But in the rain it was obvious that about half the water was overshooting and running down the wheel rut.  This groove and the little downhill bank diverted all the water from tis area into the ditch.  Water here is what comes down RTR from my house, and what comes down Jack&Lori's driveway.

West side of RTR near the trailhead, looking south.The tree blocks the original ditch, kicking water from the ditch into the wheel rut.  A little hoe work got the water back into the ditch on the downhill side.   I did this in several places on Baer Hill during the same storm, and watched the road drain off in real time.

Two rain grooves on Red Tail Run just below my driveway combined to  dry the road out down to Jack&Lori's.  The water here is mostly from Shadowwood.

These grooves were replaced by waterbars the next day.