What's the weather like in your neck of the woods?

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Nothing but rain on and off for the last 3 days. Managed to sneak in 3/4 of a prune on Tuesday, but everywhere is soaked now. Hoping for sun & wind the next few days to dry things out.
 
Yea, the wind was bad today. Last thing I did was a foundation cert, and trying to hook my tape on the concrete while standing in the mud, with the wind blowing everything was pissing me off. I hate my DeWalt power tape. That thing's junk. I need to put in an amazon order for more lufkins. I wonder if anyone's tried using an oversized case for a tape to allow room for dirt? Seems obvious to me. There's little more aggravating than walking around with 8' of tape hanging out of the case.
 
The problem isn't the size of the case, more room wouldn't give much advantage. To self wind, the tape has to slide over itself in all the numerous turns, as the leaf spring does too. If you get some grit, rust, mud, water... the friction is greatly enhanced and the spring can't deliver enough force to roll back the tape.
A manual crank on the case instead of the spring (or have both) works way better in the dirty places, but sure, it's annoying.

The wind was way stronger than announced today. It screamed between the limbs this afternoon. It broke more stuff than the 3 storms two weeks ago. I was in a twin skinny dead maple and I just had the time to cut the tops, before the serious hit. It was in a very small valley and luckily the air flow passed a few meters over me, rocking the crown of a big oak behind/over my head.
It allowed our fire to eat a lot of contaminated wood though, even the logs rotten and deeply soaked by the rain.
 
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Our birthday celebratory trip to the Oregon coast was blessed with off the charts beautiful weather...especially for late February. Sunny, next to no wind, mid to upper 50's into the low 60's F. Magnificent weather.

And today, back here at home, mostly sunny, upper 40's to low 50's...which made burning a slug of winter debris we'd piled up ahead of time a joy.
 
What a luck.

Today, guess what ? A new wave of strong wind and rain again. I have to do something serious where I park my van. Too much water in the dirt. The ground can't hold the weight and the wheels just plow through the layer of chips ! That mixes the chips with the dirt and all the cohesion of the chips layer is lost. I nearly get stuck a couple times.
 
You are to the point where you need to move up the temporary roadway department.... i would suggest some plywood or wood planks to build a plank road, which is then covered with chips. I'm thinking of trying a soil cement later this year when it dries after spring... you basically dump Portland cement (not concrete) on the area and till it under, and then compact it. The Portland sets up and tada you have hard dirt that resists water intrusion
 
Really? Have you seen this in practice? I have an area that needs some kind of treatment but I can't pave it, even with chips.
 
I've seen it on commercial sites, but it was made black afterward. Never seen it left naked.
 
Me? No lol, but apparently they do it for road bases all the time. It usually is then topped for water intrusion, haven't gotten that far yet... maybe poly? Or blacktop sealer? A poly layer and some chips might be ok, something to tear up driving and snow removal that can then be put back easily enough. I'm eventually going to figure out this problem, because I'm too cheap to rock half of an acre. I've even thought of paving it, possibly with wooden blocks like cat has in sections.


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Paving and surfacing operations - https://books.google.com/books?id=0qUXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=military+expedient+roadways&source=bl&ots=tiUyk1lw0l&sig=ACfU3U05QRBXxwinkED81ODF6RitfLMn8Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinsaWf9vbnAhVIKa0KHUCWC-4Q6AEwBXoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=military expedient roadways&f=false
 
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If it were me, and I had some equipment, I'd look in the direction of underdrain, an aggregate base, then dirt on top. Kinda depends on how much needs to be done though. That could be a pretty big operation if it's a large area.
 
Looks like they have staying power. The wikipedia article has a pic of an excavation of a 16th century road, and a link to one from the 4th century, but that one was in a bit of disrepair. Looked like Philly road :^P

 
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the wood of choice would have been old growth western redcedar...very rot resistant. The logs were split into quarters, then laid edge to edge with the split to the center side up, and then a second layer was laid in reverse on top of the first. It actually produced a fairly smooth surface.
 
Pretty cool today; just a bit above freezing. 46° tomorrow, then upper 50s next week. Looks like we'll have had about a week of winter total a couple days at a time throughout the season. Weaksauce...
 
That reminds me, 20 years ago I tried a tiny corduroy road, actually just the path of each wheel. It was a garden border, made of half rounds of (so called) treated wood. About 16" wide, that was enough to hold the car. But between the rot of the wood and the rust of the wires and the staples, that lasted only two years.
A bunch of railroad ties would be way better but frankly overkill.
When I was young, I saw often the perforated steel plates used for the temporary landing areas. That would works very well but I guess that most of them have been scraped now. I have to look at that.
 
We got a morning of nice blue sky:big-jump:
What a relief !
Yesterday, in less than one hour, the grass turned in a muddy mess, just by the feet.
The landscaper wanted to plant a nice weeping willow, but a flow of water invaded the hole. They even put in it a sump pump. But as soon as they shut it down, the water filled the hole in a matter of minutes. :lol:So...
 
The trick for that is to actually dig a deeper sump, put a bit of rock in, then the pump, then bury the pump in rock. The rock will filter most of the mud, and you just let it run. You gotta really watch the sides tho, with water intrusion the walls will be pushed in with the hydraulic force of the water. So with some shoring to make it safe, it becomes an almost decent place to work, especially if you rock the bottom or crib up and lay down plywood. Welcome to my office!
 
Rain today, and maybe snow showers tonight. Supposed to be 45° tomorrow, and 56° Sunday. Trying to plan my weekend. I'd like to spend some quality time in front of the stove and pretend it's winter, but I'd be squandering good milling weather, and it'll be hotter than I'd like on Sunday. Additionally, I'm getting screwed out of an hour of time this weekend. Might be the last "winter" I get this season. Leaning towards taking tomorrow off, and milling Sunday :^/
 
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