Looks like all is quiet on the home front.  Been busy with work and visitors, oh, and finishing projects around the house.  Started on rebuilding a bridge on my property today, put the first of several cameras up earlier this month, and had several visitors come and go the past couple of weeks.  Not to mention work as usual. Hope everyone is doing well.

 

Also, been trying to make time to play some games unsuccessfully, and we're about to hit another heavy season of games. I do have GoW 4 that came with my GPU. Want to put some time into it after Deus Ex.

I have most of the bridge done now. I'm sooo sore. Lol. Like a troll under a bridge shoring up the supports.

Turned out good, man. Love that satisfaction of building something.

Me too. Was thinking that very thing. Actually had an interesting conversation with the neighbor about just that.

Apparently our high school here doesn't have any sort of shop or trade building at all. They're trying to bring it back with little success. Shame really.

No shop class? In America? No freaking way.

Apparently it's a thing. Vocational classes have been on decline. Largely due to the no child left behind act and the focus on testing and academics.

Thankfully it was still around when my son went to school. Shame it's gone or going.

I guess maybe it depends on school. I had it in mine and wouldn't have traded it for anything. I was pretty heavy on the academics. Did great, but drafting helped me in my career and I wouldn't have traded my shop classes for anything.

Either way, should be an option for kids. This country is not just for college grads. There has and always will be a need for the trades.

Yeah no doubt. It was one of the few classes I looked forward to in school.

Well, did some math today. One thing I don't look forward to. 41 bags of quikcrete

Damn that's a lot. lol Time to hire some neighborhood kids. haha

I wish. I think I've decided to just pony up for the fast set and dump the bags straight in. Throw down a bit of water and be done with it. It's more erosion control than support at this point.

Shoring up the sides for fast moving rainfall, snow melt or both?

We did a small bridge on a friend's property and we used a culvert with concrete reinforcements on the sides, and creek rock for the embankments. That was at least 6 years ago and it's still going strong. It really gets moving in the Spring time, too.

Rain in short bursts. Gets high enough to crest the top of the bridge and the banks have washed out over the years. Using the concrete as support and fill to replace the bank and hopefully keep it there.

Same with my friend's bridge, which is why he opted for the culvert. Lots of rock and clay mud would wash down along with the water. It can do a number on most anything with that mix of detritus over time. Glad yours isn't quite the same way from the sounds of it.

Thankfully no. It's across a natural creek that the development has over time turned into rain water runoff catch from all the streets. So normally it's pretty tame, but during heavy rain we get washout from all the street drains. Never enough in the way of debris to cause damage, but the sheer amount of water over the years has caused erosion. I'd say the bridge was originally built 20 years ago. The main support footers looked about 4 ft deep and probably close to the originally creek edge. Now the footers are completely washed out and the bank was washed out about 2 ft further from the bridge edge.

Which is why I had to do all the extra support work, and why there will be so much concrete.

That should last years then, no worries.
Last time I saw pics of the back of your place, it looked pretty clear of trees and scrub brush. All over this county there's tons of Manzanita that wreaks havoc on drains and the like. Add in the red clay and the rock coming down from the snow melt and it's basically a steam roller coming down. lol

lol. Only thing I got is Walnuts. Lots of trees in the area but again that's not where the water comes from so no big worries. It does get violent enough to move stones, but that's about it. I'm more concerned with the runoff further up the yard.

They ended the drainage ditch right above my property and it is causing it to erode its own little creek. Going to have to dig a drainage tunnel under ground to the main creek before it's over with.

Oh damn.

Why do you have a bridge exactly?

I've been quiet, mostly because I've not spent a lot of time online lately. I log on to raid in wow, but other than that my work has me so depressed lol. I just kinda exist otherwise.

 

I'm about to go to anaheim to go to blizzcon so that should be fun.

 

 

I don't think my highschool had a woodshop class, but I could be wrong. I know we had a lot of agricultural classes

I certainly can relate to work bringing you down. Hope you can stick through it until the bad is gone or you find something better.

I use it so I can get my mower across to mow the rest of my property. I assume it was originally built for the same purpose.

The land was originally flood plain that the developer left to the other property owners. As long as they kept up their section and didn't bother him he was going to let them claim the property after X years (15 or 20) by law here.

Long story short, one of the neighbors started complaining that the guy needed to come take care of a downed tree in the flood basin and so the developer sold it.

Guy who built my house about 8 years ago bought the land with the lot. So now it's all mine to take care of.

Buy a couple goats. They'll eat it all

Dude, that bridge looks amazing. And also, grass is a pain in the ass to take care of. Nature's like "haha things die and fertilize it and rain and shit" but no, we want to be beautiful and uniform. Curse us!

 

My friend replaced all her grass with a Scottish Moss (I think?) that has all these pretty white flowers when it blooms, but to be fair she had a tiny amount of grass on her property. Now it just flanks a water feature.

Luckily for me I'm of the "as long as it's green" school of thought. I try to keep it mowed and green. Not much beyond that. Grass is a weed after all.

Moss would be pretty bad ass if you had a small enough area to deal with.

Mom keeps trying to get me to take some goats. Odd part is, I can legally have a horse on my property, But I can't have goats or pigs in the city limits.

Goats are fucking rad pets, my friend raises them and now he milks them and makes goat cheese. I think I might marry him.