Pecan Grove (www.pecan-grove.net)

July 18, 2008

Finally… a foundation!

Filed under: Senior Residence — knewman @ 8:44 am

The day of pouring the slab on the senior residence was quite exciting. It started at 3 a.m. because the concrete plant had a full schedule. Weather was perfect for pouring concrete, cool and somewhat humid. Things got hotter once the sun came up.

Trucks woke me up at 4:00 a.m. After deciding I was not going back to sleep, I got up and went to the site. I found the concrete pouring was well underway. By 5:00 half the concrete had been placed. This job will take an estimated 360 yards.

At 6:00 color was showing in the sky over the lake. Sunrise at 6:30.

Once the concrete is hard enough to walk on, a machine is used to level out the minor variations of slab height. A boom pump truck is used on jobs like this because of slab size and site conditions. This truck can place concrete up to 130′ away from the pump at 3-4 yards per minute.

This is about the 35th truck at the pump. Notice the man in the safety vest with the remote controls for the boom.

It’s 5 hours after the first concrete truck. The slab by this time is quite hard. There are no breaks for the men. Anything that needs to be done to the slab has to happen now or it’ll be too late. They have begun to apply the curing compound on the far end of the slab.

The finished product. Red lines on the left are where they started laying out saw cuts to control future cracks in the slab. The boy is cleaning up some recessed bolt threads where steel columns will go.

Now that there is a foundation, y’all will have to check back more often. Things will progress more rapidly than they have in the past few months. tgh

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July 9, 2008

Kim’s Update

Filed under: Pecan Grove — knewman @ 12:12 pm

Here are some of the more mundane things that are going on around here.

The figs are ripening at an amazing rate. Leona came yesterday to pick some and Jack said that a few people at CTES were interested in some. There are more figs than I can do anything with so I am glad others want some. The birds, wasps, ladybugs and bees are getting their fair share also. I have made some preserves and jam so Ken and Kathy can at least have a taste of what they are missing. I also successfully froze some whole figs yesterday.

The garden is also doing well. The tomatoes are bearing another load. I had picked all those that were red and thought that was the end of them but they have all kinds of flowers and little tomatoes again. Kathy’s cucumbers haven’t quit and the Rosamonds and Jack and Leona and a few others are probably getting sick of them by now. The squash isn’t faring so well. They all got some kind of disease that I still haven’t totally figured out but I replanted a couple of plants and there may be more squash later. The peppers of all kinds are bearing a lot more than I thought they would. I also have pumpkins getting orange and watermelon getting bigger.

$Kathy\'s bells$

I picked a hornworm off a tomato plant this morning. I don’t have picture of that one but here are the four that ate my potato plant. The potato plant is recovering but as you can see it was reduced to only stalks. Since then I have been on the lookout for them. Of course they blend in so well that the first thing noticeable is the missing leaves. kch

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July 8, 2008

Newman house

Filed under: Newman Residence — knewman @ 7:44 pm

In the farthest, most remote, part of the property…

deeper in the forest than most people ever go…

over the river…

and through the woods…

will be the house that Jack built. Well…, he’ll have it built ! :p

More to come on Jack & Leona Newman’s new home…

tgh

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Improvements

Filed under: Pecan Grove — knewman @ 7:29 pm

The new fence at the highway got a coat of primer and two coats of green paint.

Along the road, there are three culverts. The decision was made to move the entrance up to the west culvert. This is higher up the hill and hopefully will allow safer entry onto the 70 mph highway !

The new way out.

There was a ravine near the senior center site that we used to access the clearing before the road was cut in.

We had Dean Kolp plant some culverts to make the crossing smoother.

The pasture at the northeast corner of the property was accessible only by driving on the dam.

A stream crossing was created.

tgh

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A little about dams…

Filed under: Ponds — knewman @ 3:39 pm

Most ponds on private property are formed by earthen dams. It’s a relatively inexpensive and easy way to contain water if you have clay soil. However, we’ve learned there are things to watch on all dams, and one thing especially critical for earth embankments is to limit erosion. All ponds will have water running into them and, therefore, water running out. Controlling water outflow needs to be addressed on this dam. As you can see by the following pictures water was flowing out over the dam in the lowest places and not in a controlled manner. The water level was quite high, overtopping the dam in the middle at one point. In a period of sustained rainfall this could be catastrophic. Sheetflow of water over the dam would cause erosion quite quickly since the dam soil is already wet. The pond water level should not be higher than 2-3 feet below the dam crest. We will need to provide a main spillway to adjust the height of the water and also an emergency spillway for periods of heavy watershed.

While we are deciding how to address the problem permanently, emergency steps were taken to lower the level of the water to avoid a dam failure. We rented a big toy and hired Dean Kolp to play in the mud. He cut a waterway around the dam to the existing creek downstream.