Finally finished!

Lena · Jul 31, 2025

Shawn T. W. said:
There was still a section of pipe not covered up, so I needed more dirt ...

View attachment 3830003

I placed rocks near the ends, so the water can flow through, but I won't crush the end of the pipe running over it!

View attachment 3830004

This is basically virgin ground, hard packed clay, that was dry, it wouldn't scrape/plow like when it was damp in the spring, even with the bigger tractor …

So, I got the rototiller to chew it up, it was tough and slow dusty work, but I got it chewed up!

View attachment 3830001

15 second dusty video!
Rototiller virgin ground

View attachment 3830002

Then I used the rear blade to put it in a row, to scoop up with the bucket and dump on the exposed piping …

View attachment 3830005

View attachment 3830006

View attachment 3830007

May not be perfect, but the piping is covered, and it's “mowable” now, good enough for a field.

View attachment 3830008

View attachment 3830009

Unfortunately the time inside the cabbed Kubota was short, compared to the time on the Massey Ferguson SCUT, or using the chainsaw ... Hot and humid today, I'm wore out!

But glad I got this done!

Looks good. The only possible problem I see is the wire over the outlet. I retire with 20 years with highways dept. All the pipes I saw with obstacles at the outlet tend to gather any type debris and eventually clog the outlet end. Keep an eye on this. even though your pipe is underground you will be surpised what will wash out the end.

walnutman · Jul 31, 2025

Huge job and satisfying to do yourself. We all have suggestions and here are mine.

We only have about 2500 ft of right of way unpaved road going into three separate properties. First few years the neighbors... who were the original owners of all of this, kept up with the road... barely.

Being a Yankee from up north LOL, here in East Texas folks are proud and don't seem to take very kindly of our expert advice LOL.

So the road comes downhill then levels out. The runoff destroys the mid to upper portions of it. Big runoff ravines. They only added material if they got it for free but had plenty of nice new equipment to plane it out. The road is also depressed and acts as a creekbed when it downpours. I need to cut the sides down for runoff and crown it.

Neighbor husband passed away a couple of years ago. He was a horder when it comes to contraptions and metal. He had a really nice chipper shredder (Redroo) overgrown back in the field. I asked the widow if I could have it. She gave it to me. I cleaned it up and put a new carb on it. Got it running great. Sold it on FB marketplace for $1500.

You might ask... where is this story going?

Well I took the money and had a full tractor trailor load of road base.. flex base. What you had initially.

The great thing about this stuff is it likes to harden like concrete under the right moisture and compaction conditions.

Been 8 months or so and it has really done the job. Plan on adding more to build up the road some and also plan on cutting out drainage ditches like you did here because when looking at the road crossing over our property, its higher on the other side and lower coming onto our property... just a little. Long spring rains we have runoff crossing the road and into our yard. I have loads of underground drainage to handle the accumulation but I can alleviate a lot of it by cutting in an embankment on the far side and directing the water to the entrance of the ponds. Bad part is there are some underground utilities on the other side so I need to be careful with depth. No electric just fiber and copper telephone. The fiber isn't a problem as it's plenty deep but the telephone is only about 12-18 inches. I don't need a lot though.

So my suggestion would be why even bother with the drain pipe? It's just gonna clog up and end up working fine without it as surface runoff.

I hope I didn't hijack your accomplishments too much. That's a ton of work and will still be for a while.

neilpaku · Jul 31, 2025

That's a lot of work for a little machine - well done! And nobody ever went wrong putting in more sub-base : )

tacticalturnip · Jul 31, 2025

That's really nice work Shawn, it looks really good. Proof that a SCUT can get a lot done; it just takes a little more time.

dbritt · Jul 31, 2025

What part of the Ozarks are you in? I'm in southwest Missouri and I thought all the Ozarks was like my part of it, 4 inches of topsoil, then nothing but very, very hard clay and rocks, mostly rocks. To make a driveway around here, we remove the topsoil, put down a layer of 2" rock, and cover that with a layer of 1/2" to 3/4" mix with fines in it. Sets up like concrete and never moves. I cuss the rocks under the surface on my farm, but when it comes to making a road, those same rocks are a blessing in disguise.

Now, when it comes to digging holes for corner posts.....well, that's a whole 'nuther story.

Shawn T. W. · Jul 31, 2025

walnutman said:
So my suggestion would be why even bother with the drain pipe? It's just gonna clog up and end up working fine without it as surface runoff.

Originally I was planning on keeping the "ditch/swale" open, but ... In order to get it to drain, I had to overcome the 2.5' rise, so it kept getting deeper ... I want to mow it with an 8' wide mower, so didn't want that short steep sides drainage area, plus the deepest part was by that one utility pole, which was only about 6' away from the center of my ditch, originally when I started digging, I only thought it would need to be 6"-8" deep ... So I didn't care how close it was to the pole ...

So I buried the pipe to make that area more level for easier mowing.