Payson Possible: The Culvert Ditch Saga

We have not updated our blog since the beginning of February because there really has not been a lot going on at the house. Weather, colds, visitors, etc. have all made house updates slow these past two months. But there have been some recent activities that are worth writing about, so this post is a little longer than normal to cover the last few months.

First we would like to report the status of our water filter system. Our last update mentioned the final leak on one of the connections that seemed to be correcting itself. Over the past many weeks, we have continually checked that connection and found no leak. So the water filter install is done and now put to bed.

As the title indicates, we have another ongoing story that deals with our culverts and ditch. Our front yard has a u-shaped driveway and each entrance has a culvert tube to allow water drainage and between them is a ditch. This ditch is a pain to maintain due to the weeds that grow in it over time. In the last year or two, some of our neighbors have lined their ditches with rocks. It does not control the weeds, but it makes the ditch look much better. We decided awhile back we wanted to do the same, but, before laying the rocks, we wanted to put down a weed control fabric. We bought the fabric a number of months ago and just needed to get the rocks.

One of our neighbors has tried planting a garden in his backyard, but it never turns out well. He found he had a lot of large rocks under his soil and bought a backhoe to remove them. He told us we could have whatever we wanted and he would even dump them in our front yard. That sure beat going out to the forest and scavenging for them. So now we had the weed barrier and the rocks, time to prepare the ditch.

During one weekend in the past two months, another neighbor was taking care of his weeds - both in his yard and ditch. He uses a propane flame torch and was working on and off all day. Late that day Laurie was outside and, in the course of their conversation, he offered to burn the weeds in our ditch. Mike did not want him doing this alone, so went outside to talk to him. After awhile, Mike was able to take over and then finish the job. It was hard to tell how well it worked since it was now dark outside, but Mike told the neighbor he would clean it up the next day.

As Mike was removing the burnt and non-burnt weeds the following day, the neighbor who gave us the rocks came out to inspect our ditch. He told Mike our ditch was not deep enough and even showed him that the culvert closest to his house was half full due to water backup. He offered to use his backhoe to dig out our ditch (yes we have awesome neighbors). That week when Mike was in the Valley, our neighbor started to dig it out and stopped because it was making the ditch too unlevel and he wanted Mike's assessment on how to proceed. When Mike came up the next weekend, he too was concerned about the grade and worked with the neighbor to dig out the rest of the ditch. Mike was recovering from a cold and helped to move some of the dirt as the neighbor worked his backhoe, but after a little while he was too tired to continue. So we asked our neighbor to loosen the rest of the dirt in the ditch so it would be easier to dig out later. We did move some of the dirt to two large holes in the front left from dead trees we removed and used the rest to help reduce the grade of the slope going to the backyard through our double-gates.

Neighbor's first attempt at digging out the ditch, very deep hole on left

Mike and neighbor working together to dig out ditch

After awhile, we just had the neighbor dig up dirt and leave it in ditch

Partially dug out ditch and a lot of loose dirt that needs to be removed

There was a large hole here from a dead tree when we bought the place

Though the slope is not to bad for the trucks, it is steep for the cars

To add to the story, we found out indirectly from another neighbor down the street that we should not be lining the ditch with rocks as the Town of Payson is responsible for maintaining the ditches and does not want rocks in them. So we contacted the town offices and found they were OK with us using the rocks as long as we continued to maintain the ditch. At the same time we asked if they would inspect the ditch to be sure we had the proper grade for drainage. They said they would send someone out to look at it.

Due to other activities and some travel, we were never able to complete the ditch clean-out and no one from the Town of Payson came by to do an inspection, until this last week. Mike was given approval at the end of February to work remotely as our apartment lease in the Valley was coming to an end in April. This was his first week of the new schedule and, while he was in his home office, he noticed men and machinery in the front yard. In talking with the men, they said someone complained about a culvert being plugged on our street and they saw our partially dug up ditch and the half-filled culvert. Mike gave them the whole story and they said they do not like the rocks in the ditches. If something does go wrong with drainage, they would have to remove the rocks to correct the problem. Mike reiterated the information we got from their office people and they were not surprised. Regardless of the rock situation, they were there to clean out ditches and used their backhoe (actually used the back of the bucket) to remove the excess dirt and put the correct grade in the ditch. They said they would be back later to remove some of the dirt from the half-filled culvert, but no one returned that day. This was one case where procrastination (though not intentional) paid off. We did not have to do any back-breaking shoveling of dirt or find places in the yard to put the excess dirt. It was a definite win-win.

Town workers bright and early on a rainy day

Looks much better than the picture above with all the loose dirt

Even though the workers do not want the rocks in the ditch, since the town office was OK with it, we will go ahead with the plan to put the weed barrier and rocks down. This will make it look nicer and help control the weeds better as originally planned. We'll provides updates as this project evolves.

One other project we completed a few weeks ago was installing a dog door for Zena. During the initial remodel, we had planned to put one in and even bought the door. We opted later not to install it after big storm in which we saw how muddy Zena got in our gravel back yard, but we still held on to the door all this time (isn't that a surprise). We have been able to either board Zena or someone (Mike's mom usually) has been at the house to watch her if we have been gone. At other times, we have been able to leave her alone in the house for as long as 12 hours, but we try not to do that too often. So we decided we needed a better way to handle her when we have to be gone for a longer timeframe, esp. as she gets older and may not be able to "hold it" for long periods of time. We also had a trip planned with some friends that would require us to be gone close to 14 hours and getting Mike's mom to watch her would require 2 trips to the valley to pick her up and take her back home.

So we bit the bullet and installed the door. The best place for it was in the kitchen just as we had planned years ago. The kitchen has vinyl flooring, so it will not get damaged by her being wet or muddy, and, with the PVC fence/gate Mike built, we could keep her penned up in that area just to be safe. With a combination of our rebuild pictures and Mike's new stud finder, we found the right section in the wall to use and made the scary cuts into the drywall. The placement was perfect but, after getting into the wall, Mike found a short 2x4 placed sideways against the outside wall that did not show in pictures or with the stud finder (was not close enough to the drywall to be detected). Mike completed the drywall opening to fit the door before starting on the exterior.

The only place on this wall that fit the dog door

Mike did his best to properly mark the outside to match the inside opening, but after making his cuts and some holes for the joining screws, found he was slightly off. He also had to cut off about an inch of the sideways 2x4, which was not an easy task since it was not well secured. In the end, he had to use a hand saw to complete the cut. Once the 2x4 was cut and the outside holes re-adjusted (luckily the dog door frame covered it all), we were able to get the door to install correctly. This was the second "cut a hole through the house" task (first was stove vent) that Mike had to do (and hated every minute of it) and still survived.

Mike cutting away exterior excess

More trimming from a different angle

That odd sideways 2x4 that could only be cut by hand

Completed door on the inside

Completed door on the outside

It only took a little bit of coaxing to get Zena through the door and she went back and forth with no issue. With each passing day, she uses it more and we find she likes to stay outside most of the time. We set up the kitchen the day of our long-day outing with her bedding/crate, secured the PVC fence and off we went. She was sure happy to see us when we got back, but there were no accidents or damage to the kitchen - a success. Now we can be more comfortable when we have to be gone for a long day if the need arises.

Zena's first time going through

Some other miscellaneous jobs included attempting a hose bib repair and installing a driveway sensor. The bib under the back porch had started leaking awhile back and Mike could not tell the source due to the insulation around the unit. When he removed it, he found a split in the metal tube. A trip to Home Depot found they changed their stock of hose bibs and only carry 1/2 inch male connector types instead of 3/4 inch. Instead of buying the 1/2 inch with an adapter to connect to our 3/4 inch sharkbite, he decided to try a new repair tape they carried. He followed the instructions to the letter and, though it no longer shoots water from the split, the water seeps through the repair tape like rain - failed! We have ordered a new 3/4 inch unit from homedepot.com.

Failed patch job, even though the directions said it would work

We already have an external camera that Laurie can access through her phone to see people at the front porch, but sometimes that took too long for her to get to and she wanted better forewarning. We bought a driveway sensor on sale at Harbor Freight and placed in on one of our posts in the yard. When something crosses its path (like a car or person) in our driveway, we get a tone on the receiver in the house. Seems to work well, but the first weekend of it being on, we had the neighbor kids riding through our yard and had to shut it off for a awhile. It also goes off multiple times some nights - we think a free-range neighborhood cat may be triggering it.

Outdoor driveway sensor pointed across our entrance

The interior receiver that sounds like someone entering a small store

Apart from the work above, we spent some time setting up Mike's office area for him to work remotely (bought two new monitors), signed up for cable TV from Suddenlink and Laurie started a new job with the Payson area Board of Realtors.

Mike's new work setup

On one Sunday, we took a long ATV ride up Doll Baby Ranch Rd. The ride was to determine the ATV mpg as we had planned a 60+ mile trip with some friends from Chino Valley to Jerome on the old Perkinsville Road and wanted to be sure we didn't need to take gas with us (as Jerome does not have a gas station). We found that both quads got about 30 miles to the gallon and have 4+ gallon tanks. Good to know for future trips.

Our turn-around point on our mpg fact finding ride - not good at selfies

The Jerome expedition was a blast! Some of the trip was on the Perkinsville Road; another part was on an old railroad trail (it used to be an actual rail line to Jerome from Chino Valley, but the rails have long ago been removed). This made the ride more exciting since the main road is just a flat gravel road. So some of the trip was fast moving and some was slower, going over the unimproved trail. Over all a fun trip with friends, lunch at the Haunted Hamburger and a stop at the Verde River near the Perkinsville Ranch.