Ditch digger

I’ve got a little project on the go.  A local farmer has a slough that’s maybe 3 acres in extent which he wants drained.  This area is so flat its really hard to get rid of excess water.  I ran some levels for the guy and he’s maybe got 3 feet to work with.  So if the slough started out more than three feet deep it isn’t going to drain completely.  But he wanted to tackle it so I’ve had the little Kubota hoe out there since Wednesday. 

A couple of shots of the little Kubota and the ditch.

 

That’s the slough that we’re trying to get rid of. It was pretty wet when we started.  The track in the foreground is one I made when my big Ford didn’t quite get stuck.

And this is the ditch that is supposed to drain the water once I get it across the height of land that is currently separating the slough from the ditch.  There’s not much slope to work with in the main ditch so right now the water is mostly just filling the ditch and sitting there.  We’ll know in a couple of days whether the main ditch is actually lower than the bottom of the slough.  That’s important.

Delmar had to bring his 4WD because I got stuck trying to straddle the ditch.  The Buchanan clay is pretty stable but the higher ground between the slough and the drainage ditch is sand and gravel.  It caves in regularly if I get too close to the edge which is what happened while I was straddling the ditch.  Normally I can hop over a single bucket width ditch by putting the hoe across the ditch and letting it carry the nose of the machine across and then turning around and holding the back up as it crosses.  I almost buried myself a second time this morning when the edge caved away while I was trying to hop the ditch. I won’t be trying that manoeuvre again.