Another thing that I've been wanting to do is remove the culverts and dig a ditch to get every drop of water possible into the Lake Marabou. My guess is that I was losing about 20 acres of runoff. Half of it before it gets to my small pond, the other half between that pond and the lake. When we've had some free time, I've had my dad remove the trees that where in the way of the trench. He finished that last month. Then I had him take out the culverts. There where 20 of them, and they where a lot bigger then we had expected. First thought was to reuse them, but they are heavy, slightly damaged and we don't have a clue on how to install them. My next thought was to use them for planters or something decorative. After all sorts of ideas on painting them and covering them in tile, I came up with the idea to use them in the lake as islands for flowers. The more we talked about it, the more I liked it.
They are going to be 12 feet apart on center and installed right at the water line. We measured with my laser level and it's exactly 42 inches low. Each culvert is 48 inches long, so that gives me 6 inches above water when full. I think that is going to look good, especially with lots of colorful flowers in each one.
To get them to the water, and set them in place, I figured drilling two holes in each side and running a chain through the hole would be the fastest, easiest way to do this. Drilling with my SDS Max drill was a pain. There is a lot of rebar in those pipes and out of 40 holes, I only made it through 6 times without hitting metal. I dug out a flat pad with the backhoe, the placed them on the pad. A few times I had to use the backhoe level them off a little bit, but mostly they just sit in place.
Eddie
And God speed with the gazebo
