If you recall last summer at the hunting property my employer owns we did a lot of clearing with chainsaws and dragging to open up a field that had been taken over by the swamp. Our hopes are to continue clearing the area and get it to the point where we can plant duck food plots. The recent tractor purchase goes a long way towards making it happen.
This past Sunday Thomas and I took the tractor over there and made some progress clearing trails. The problem we are running into though is the place is holding as much water as it did during hunting season. Twenty years ago it never held this much water in the summer. Last year we had a very dry summer so the place eventually dried out enough to clear in the later summer/fall timeframe. This year has been wet and given the amount of water it's holding there is no way we can get in the swamp to clear. Not only that but the smartweed is once again so thick you can't even walk in there much less see the 3 feet of water. This happened two years ago and it was a loss for hunting.
Trying to find the reason for the water we discovered there are two clogged culverts at the foot of bridge where the water flows out of the swamp and to the river. All water goes through these 30-36" culverts so they need to be cleared to get any kind of control of the situation. I did manage to clear the lower one with some hand tools and a lot of sweat. Crawled in the pipe and dug it out by hand.
I'm willing to do the second pipe by hand as well but it will be a harder job. As an alternative to sweating it out I started thinking there must be some way to blast it out with water pressure. If only I knew someone with access to a large pump or fire truck, perhaps. The pipe is mere feet from a gravel road so access is really easy. It's just a matter of getting the right peice of equipment to do the job. Anybody have experience with this? Any suggestions?
This past Sunday Thomas and I took the tractor over there and made some progress clearing trails. The problem we are running into though is the place is holding as much water as it did during hunting season. Twenty years ago it never held this much water in the summer. Last year we had a very dry summer so the place eventually dried out enough to clear in the later summer/fall timeframe. This year has been wet and given the amount of water it's holding there is no way we can get in the swamp to clear. Not only that but the smartweed is once again so thick you can't even walk in there much less see the 3 feet of water. This happened two years ago and it was a loss for hunting.
Trying to find the reason for the water we discovered there are two clogged culverts at the foot of bridge where the water flows out of the swamp and to the river. All water goes through these 30-36" culverts so they need to be cleared to get any kind of control of the situation. I did manage to clear the lower one with some hand tools and a lot of sweat. Crawled in the pipe and dug it out by hand.
I'm willing to do the second pipe by hand as well but it will be a harder job. As an alternative to sweating it out I started thinking there must be some way to blast it out with water pressure. If only I knew someone with access to a large pump or fire truck, perhaps. The pipe is mere feet from a gravel road so access is really easy. It's just a matter of getting the right peice of equipment to do the job. Anybody have experience with this? Any suggestions?
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