Neighbor J has a deal with the trash guy. I don’t know if the county employing the trash guy would entirely approve of this deal, but that’s none of my business. For a certain fixed fee. the guy will haul off a near-unlimited amount of trash to the dump, no questions asked. J invited me to add to the pile due to be carried off early next week.
Despite our best efforts to reuse/recycle, trash does accumulate. Some of this I could simply burn, but some really does need to go elsewhere. This morning I filled up the Jeep trailer with a bunch of old plywood that’s been clogging Landlady’s plaza for months.
Long enough for the rats to have moved in, in any case. This time of year I approach piles of flat stuff with caution bordering on paranoia. A bunch of nesting material means a rat thought it was snake-free. But rats are sometimes wrong, and this nest is old.
Still relatively cool and the boys were having a good time, so I went to a place I pass often but almost never drive: Where the people are.
This is the main drag to the county road. Technically it’s all private property, tended by a sort of vestigial property-owners’ association that rarely gets involved with anything but road maintenance. The road guy tried to keep this little wash crossing passable with culverts that kept washing out. Finally he just dug the culverts out and half-ass paved it. So far that has worked.
The flood keeps trying to wash out his paving. He pounded steel posts into the wash to hold boulders to try and slow the water down, so that it will deposit its silt instead of just gaining speed on the paving and digging it out more on the downstream side. It’s slowly failing because the wash always wins in the end, but I admire his perseverance.
But I’m more interested in that little black dot. A bucket has washed or blown in there and I want to look at it before the next flood. With a great deal of luck it’s one of those good ones horse-owners buy, made of some expensive rubbery material that’s damn near immune from UV degradation. If so, it’s worth expending a little gasoline and giving the boys a longer-than-usual ride.
Alas, no. It won’t even hold water. But I pick it up and haul it away anyhow, because why leave trash lying around?
Will it,take a patch? I have used caulking, pine/juniper,pitch and melted water bottles to patch plastic tubs and buckets.
Sure, I could patch it in a pinch but it’s not worth saving. Just an old plastic bucket.
True, not worth the effort then.
The road guy is trying to slow the water down too close to the crossing for it to be effective. If he will do that kind of work starting a half mile to a mile upstream (depending on the grade) it might work, and do it at sort of close intervals (also depending on the grade). Then if he will put an apron on the upstream and downstream sides that will help protect the crossing too. The apron can be pervious paving or pervious paver blocks specially designed and made for crossing washouts and installed correctly. Check the Internet for suppliers close to you. If there’s place where the gully is straight with no vegetation another possibility is to put some bends in the gully. He wouldn’t want to disturb any vegetation along it because that will make it worse. Gully crossings in the desert are always difficult but they can often be managed.
That bucket could be your future garden. My south Texas soil is barely better than yours, and all but winter crops usually fail. Cut the bottom off and it’s a raised bed.