What ages you or makes you feel old?

[Bandit’s Lair]

New answer: Installing ground mount solar for the house. Whoever said this stuff is easy evidently didn’t do it right. Trenching, hauling pea gravel and sand so the conduit is protected, laying conduit, hacking conduit up, gluing conduit. Running the tape lines was kinda fun. Taped some twine to a sandwich bag and sucked it through with a shop vac. It’s sad that I found that fun but oh well. We have 3 runs of 8 gauge PV cable sticking out of our wall now though so half way there. I oversized the cable and conduit and added an extra run just in case I decide to get another inverter for the extra 3850w of input into the system. I did forget to label each run though so going to have to put a panel on each of them and test for voltage to figure out which one is which. It’s been a weekend. I’m beat all to hell.

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[Stan H]

New answer: Installing ground mount solar for the house. Whoever said this stuff is easy evidently didn’t do it right. Trenching, hauling pea gravel and sand so the conduit is protected, laying conduit, hacking conduit up, gluing conduit. Running the tape lines was kinda fun. Taped some twine to a sandwich bag and sucked it through with a shop vac. It’s sad that I found that fun but oh well. We have 3 runs of 8 gauge PV cable sticking out of our wall now though so half way there. I oversized the cable and conduit and added an extra run just in case I decide to get another inverter for the extra 3850w of input into the system. I did forget to label each run though so going to have to put a panel on each of them and test for voltage to figure out which one is which. It’s been a weekend. I’m beat all to hell.

There aint enough sunlight here to get a tan let alone run a solar array but sounds brutal dude

 

[Bandit’s Lair]

We were in mid 70’s today with full sun. Had my son out learning how to work the bucket filling in the trench. He didn’t suck at it.

 

[NC_Overland]

Yeah. Trenching is no fun. I hand dug several French drains a few summer ago. Several hundred feet plus about 100’ of dry creek bed and a few dry wells. That made me feel very old. lol. My Jeep got a workout too. I forgot how many yards of gravel and river rock from the stone yard, but it was a whole lot. Several trips a day 1/2 yd at a time.

 

[NC_Overland]

I did end up renting a tractor to dig one of the the 4x4x4’ dry wells, one run of one of the French drains, and regrading a swale to make it actually flow downhill. Our detached garage would get water inside under heavy rains and it started off by building a French drain around it, but it still got wet so I had to come up with a plan to control water flow from the top of the property to exit the back and into the city’s storm water management.

I got the tractor stuck too and I had to yank it out with my Jeep. That’s the backyard where is all exits and the overflow goes downhill to the city’s system. We got 11” of rain in Helene and no flooding and 3” of rain in 40 min last summer and no flooding. I’m good till it starts to clog, but I added a lot of clean out points so

 

[Bandit’s Lair]

That’s a heck of a project!! Wish I had your trees! I too got a Kubota stuck and had to pull it with a Jeep. Was digging a trench to plant purple plum trees (wifey loved them so that’s what went in) across the front and it slid right down in there. Is that last picture the back side of the swale? Looks like it gets limited sunlight might be a good place for a berry patch. I’m a huge supporter of building swales and using them to slow and sink water into my property. That run off is water I can use to refill my reservoir since I’m on a well. That’s how I always try to think when doing these kinda landscape things.

 

[NC_Overland]

That’s a heck of a project!! Wish I had your trees! I too got a Kubota stuck and had to pull it with a Jeep. Was digging a trench to plant purple plum trees (wifey loved them so that’s what went in) across the front and it slid right down in there. Is that last picture the back side of the swale? Looks like it gets limited sunlight might be a good place for a berry patch. I’m a huge supporter of building swales and using them to slow and sink water into my property. That run off is water I can use to refill my reservoir since I’m on a well. That’s how I always try to think when doing these kinda landscape things.

Swales flow an incredible amount of water. That whole area gets limited sunlight. It’s a big problem because the only grass that will grow there is fescue and apparently that’s like goose crack. You can’t really see it, but there is a city park with a large pond behind there. Every spring when the goslings are born they destroy the fescue that I have had growing great all winter/early spring. Hopefully, this spring I’m continuing the dry creek bed down the hill the cover some of that area in the swale in the pic. Next to the swale is mainly moss now. I’m open to suggestions like your berry patch idea. I’ve been unsuccessful with my goose deterrent techniques and im trying to avoid a fence. I might try some of the more shade tolerant zoysia but Im skeptical because it doesn’t get much direct sunlight there.

It’s the damn Canadian geese that are an invasive species here. The mallard ducks at the pond have always been cool and thy only dig up worms in the wooded area.

 

[Bandit’s Lair]

Diverging from the thread a bit but, are your swales on contour or are they to flow the water away from the property? I’ve only built them across to slow water from leaving but I’m in SoCal so if we get water we want to keep it.
You could try a natural fence if you have an edge on the property before the pond. An edge being where the tree line ends and where open ground starts. Something like Rosa rugosa can grow into a very tight hedge that’s attractive and beneficial for bees and butterflies. And rosehip tea if you’re into it. Can be found online sold as a hedge for a couple hundred for a good number of them. Grow so tightly together a rabbit won’t get through.
It’s amazing the amount of nonsensical crap I study since I retired early.

 

[JTGuy]

If you can still do large outdoor projects you are good.

 

[Hootbro]

Was reminded my age today trying to chip away the 2" of ice that has been encasing my driveway for the last week. I can understand why heart attacks spike after a snow storm.

 

[Rusty PW]

Was reminded my age today trying to chip away the 2" of ice that has been encasing my driveway for the last week. I can understand why heart attacks spike after a snow storm.

 

[NC_Overland]

Diverging from the thread a bit but, are your swales on contour or are they to flow the water away from the property? I’ve only built them across to slow water from leaving but I’m in SoCal so if we get water we want to keep it.
You could try a natural fence if you have an edge on the property before the pond. An edge being where the tree line ends and where open ground starts. Something like Rosa rugosa can grow into a very tight hedge that’s attractive and beneficial for bees and butterflies. And rosehip tea if you’re into it. Can be found online sold as a hedge for a couple hundred for a good number of them. Grow so tightly together a rabbit won’t get through.
It’s amazing the amount of nonsensical crap I study since I retired early.

Yeah, sorry for the hijack. 100% on me. Yeah I made everything flow downhill. The water table is very high and the house garage should have been elevated a few feet. There are a series of drywells, but rather than fight the overflow from large rainfall events, I made it so it would flow all the way down to a retention pond. Extending the dry creek bed will just make it look nice e and cover areas where grass doesn’t grow well and also is difficult to mow because of the angle. I had to do a lot of grading in the front yard too in order to make some existing drainage work better and flow water into it and away from the main house. I finally finished that last summer with building a retaining wall, another swale, and one more French drain and three pallets of sod. Sod turned out fantastic. It rained every day for like a month after I installed it. I got so lucky.

We are trying not to block the view of the pond and also it would be very expensive to do an aluminum fence because there’s an acre back there and theres also not a great way to do it between the trees and buildings. That natural fence would be really cool if it wasn’t for blocking the view. Good info. I do appreciate it.

 

[NC_Overland]

I’ll bring this back full circle. Caring this much about my lawn and drainage projects makes me
feel old.

 

[Bandit’s Lair]

I’ll bring this back full circle. Caring this much about my lawn and drainage projects makes me
feel old.

Get OFF my LAWN!!!!!

 

[Hootbro]

No shit. Bring that up today, might as well be from another planet. Most parents today would look at you funny if suggested their fatard kid does anything like this.

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