Its Time To Drain The Swamp!

well it hasn't taken them long to uh make use of this i told them until this stuff gets wet it'll be a little while before it packs down but it'll turn back solid so uh they're using it for truck parking trailer parking looks like they backed that one in the mud nice and uh able to use that but after this is the first time it's rained on it since i've put it down so do that and drive on some it'll get packed down pretty good so uh moving the equipment tomorrow i'm gonna fuel everything up and i got a lot of rain coming tonight i'm gonna pull it up here out this mud and park it over there out of the way for now it's gonna load it up in the morning it's cold and it's windy we're gonna move some equipment this afternoon hopefully before it gets dark i'm gonna move the excavator first and come back get the dozer mr donny is right on time we're getting a late start today it's uh almost four o'clock what better way than to spend the next two hours moving equipment on a friday here we go i tried oh hope everything goes smoothly so normally when i load these uh up on the lowboy uh to get it centered i normally just follow the the deck boards kind of center it up with your gaps um if you're overhanging that way you'll be overhanging the same amount if you're even with the uh boards on each side so it looks like i'm on the inside of that board right there about an inch and uh on the inside of this one about an inch so let me boom down a little bit there's some power lines up there don't need to be getting into that and uh i'll get this right up here where it needs to be which is about right there there we go it's like a maze out here trying to get turned around with that long trucking trailer but we got it now though hopefully mr donny said i picked the damnedest sites to get into i was like what right off the main highway not too bad at all we just gotta back out so he's gonna pull up i'm gonna pull over there and then he's gonna back back up [Music] so [Music] so so time to get the dozer loaded up ready to go all right let's get this bad boy over here it is nice to have the camera all right oh i'll be back tomorrow to get started so here is the new site project i'm going to be working on it's around 90 acres uh the first thing i'm going to be doing um we're doing a house lot i got to build a road to the house lot the first things first was this was an old subdivision probably they were going to start one probably right before the recession then that hit and uh all this was cleared to build houses and it's just sat here and overgrown and in the process uh it never got graded out so it holds water just everywhere there's a big ditch that goes all the way around the property but nobody tied any ditches into that ditch and they piled all the dirt up here and it just dams everything up so what i'm going to be doing first thing is coming down here and digging a i mean it's only going to be two or three feet deep but a ditch that goes all the way across this property so i can come in here and start draining all this runoff water it's just laying in here and pulling up and best i remember is down here is where it was the worst i mean it was just like a couple acres or more just full of water yeah right in here is where it was so bad yeah so i'll be coming in here and cutting the ditch up through here today and getting all this to drain so here's one of those drainage ditches that i was talking about around this whole property years and years ago somebody dug a ditch around the property line and uh i mean it's doing its job but they piled all the dirt up here along the edges and it keeps the water from being able to flow into it now somebody's coming here and dug a little small ditch but what i'm going to do is come in here and you know pretty much tied into that grade to get as much fall as i can and then run that ditch out of the woods here and just start taking it you know straight up through there and it's going to allow all this surface water to be able to flow into that and start draining that way because i'm going to come in here and rake all this i got the 220 and the dozer here but you know trying to get a road through here and getting all this graded you see how it's just is so uneven let's allowing all those puzzles of water in there we find in here rake discs get it smoothed off and get everything flowing to a ditch then at least it'll start draining and uh get it where it's usable because i mean you just see this ridge right here and we're in eastern north carolina everything's flat you know there's not a lot of topography and um everything pretty much holds water until you know it puts rain in and it soaks into the ground but like over here i can come over here somebody's already started digging another little ditch and uh get that cleaned out and uh get all this where you know that goes up probably six or eight inches but once it's smoothed off it'll be able to run over here [Music] [Music] [Music] do so as you just saw with the drone it's it's really wet back in there and that's where the pond is eventually going to go but for now i'm digging ditches like i said get everything to drain and the driveway is coming up through here well the road's good to right here then there's a pretty soft spot right here pretty wet and uh boy it's uh it's bad but what i'm going to do is be able to come what i'll do i'll dig my ditch over there then i'll come through here and cut a side ditch over to there um and start getting all this to drain that way because that actually goes uphill that way but this is uh this is not what you want for a road but i'll start getting this drained out oh boy about maxed out a boot there and uh go from there i just cleared out the trees i need to to be able to get in here uh nothing fancy right now um no grading bucket or nothing what i'm going to do is just dig a straight ditch with the uh digging bucket it's only gonna be two to three feet deep because it really does no good to dig any deeper than the ditch beside you or that you're trying to drain into um this may always hold water just because it's going to be lower than everything else but at least i rather have one area that's concentrated versus acres and acres that are flooded so i'm going to come over here like i said i'm just doing it the width of the bucket and taking the dirt and piling it over here to the side for now i will grade all this out later but first i need this place to drain out some the ground i mean it's gonna be decent clay when it dries out it's just it has no way to drain so as you can tell i'm like almost three feet lower than the ground behind me so i should be able to get some decent drainage it almost might be a little bit of a canal for now but it'll kind of silt in with whatever runs into it get that little log out of the way and as i'm digging it the water is going to pour into it and i can just kind of eyeball the grate from there i will put a pipe in about where i'm sitting with where the back of the machine is there's a little path right here just so they can keep the access across this little road well you can see it's it's real nice topsoil but then it gets down to that i call it gumbo clay and unfortunately it just does not allow groundwater to really penetrate into it so the problem with that is uh the water just tries to lay on top of that and that's why the surface stays so wet but it's very rich dirt down here on top real nice top soil it's just it doesn't drain well [Music] i'll probably pile this dirt up right here and use the it'll be mud but at least i can uh use it to cover up the pipe that i'm going to put in here i might just have to throw a 12 inch pipe or something in here just to allow it to flow out for now i'll see what i come up with i'm sure i'm still on course i'm going to take off right straight through here and go off through those trees because that's kind of the area um i saw in the drone that's holding the most amount of water and also looks like the lowest area so that's nice to have that keep from having to walk all over this place trying to figure out exactly where stuff needs to go i can just shoot off of that i know that it needs to go in that direction [Music] [Music] so the good thing about digging with the uh 220 is it it does not take long to dig a two to three feet deep pitch i'll just make a few piles out here and spread them out i got a root break all over all this once it dries out some and uh i'll cut some little side ditches into this main line start getting this to drain i'm gonna kind of start curving a little bit back that way [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] it's goopy once this uh does dry out i can probably just come in here with the dozer run down this ditch clean it up pretty good if not i always have my grading bucket i can run down sit on each side and pull it back and whatnot but right now it's just roughly digging a ditch [Music] to get everything to start running out of here once i get all the surface water off everything will start draining out pretty good just got all that organic material in it holds water bad [Music] no big step all right well let me get on back a little farther and once i start cutting in some water it should start getting a little a little more interesting well it didn't take long to run into all the water here everything's actually starting to drain pretty good [Music] i'm just making piles here and there and i'll just leave those stacked up and they will dry out so i cut in a fair amount over there and i'm sitting in a good little amount right here i'm going to take off between these trees after i move all this out of the way [Music] [Music] so get it in the burn pile later [Music] get it out of the way for right now [Music] so [Music] [Music] and what i can do is just as i go i'll just reach out here and cut a little a little hit a little ditch here you see how dry the ground is below it it's not like dusty but it's solid [Music] it's just all that organic material won't let the water soak down into it [Music] so [Music] swipe that down a little bit oh that can pour down there into it look at that draining [Music] [Music] oh you can smell it [Music] so it's gonna be pretty amazing just what the two feet deep ditch is going this place [Music] [Music] so [Music] so look at that all right let me clear the path through the woods and best i could tell is there's a lot of water right on the other side of that tree line so i made it through the tree line now i'm to that open area where you can see all the standing ground water here uh i kind of curve the ditch i'm going to take off straight between those trees and go all the way up to that wood line with it and then i'm going to figure out where i've got to go through to get back to that low area that is in the main road that i've got to build over that way and i'm going to cut a ditch through there that'll tie into this one look at it draining away though [Music] i'm just going to make like i said random piles here and once it dries out i can take and spread it across the areas but for right now i'm just going to put it in piles instead of a long row because if you put it in a row it'll just end up creating the and uh dam have the same problem i'm trying to eliminate right now where nothing can [Music] and drain i kind of sunk through there i had to take a few trees down and it made it soft so i just kind of smeared back just so everything can run down into it once this place dries out i can come in here with the dozer and blade that off and just make a real nice little swell out of it and it'll just always kind of be the the main low area that's going to allow this place to drain out [Music] so like i said before i'm just using the runoff water and the guide to my elevation as you can tell it's flowing that way and this is flowing that way so i know i have fall on it [Music] hopefully before i leave today i can fly over here again it should be night day difference on how much this dried out through here [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] this is probably going to be the pond site right here [Music] eventually [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so look how well everything's draining now there's just water pouring in from everywhere and once we get this top you know 16 inches 20 inches two feet it'll dry out now it'll hold up about anything you want to all this was underwater when i come through here and already it's starting to drain out and go downstream so i've drove around to the low spot in the road where i need to cut a ditch because let's face it it's so thick i can't tell exactly where it was from over there so i'm going to start right here and start cutting the ditch i can follow the tree line and angle it back that way so that i'll actually get back to you know where i dug the ditch and uh see if i can't get all this to start draining i'll clear a path and then i'll start from the ditch back that way and work my way up just to uh make sure i have plenty of fall you know so i'm clearing the path through here first so that i can figure out where i'm going really keep track of the tree line over there [Music] farther [Music] so at least it seems like i'm in the right spot everything's still pretty wet when you run into dry ground is when you've kind of gotten out of the little [Music] area [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so a lot of friars i think [Music] pretty much the best thing to do with that is just strip it all off into a pile pile it up it'll rot down in a six months or so spread it back out because with it being so wet and muddy you can't ever get it [Music] so [Music] all right i'm gonna keep on clearing my path through here and then i'll take my ditch and run it back up this way [Music] luckily i couldn't tell from up there but i think like the clearest route there's like nothing through here which is normally the wettest route because nothing really grows where water stands all the time so uh that was kind of my little indication on that this is the spot i need to go so i'm just breaking this stuff back because it's kind of hard to see the lay of the land and when there's three brushed on top of it plus it just kind of clears the pattern [Music] i mean it comes through here and gets all the little bushes out but as you can tell this is definitely the lowest spot this is where the drainage ditch needs to go and i mean my farm was like this when i got it wasn't quite this bad but i went through the woods and dug it got it where it drained i mean everything's just so flat you got to gotten to get [Music] i think for us let's see there's the three lines i should run into i think that's that open field right there [Music] so i should be at a good spot once i go through those bushes to be able to tie into that [Music] it's going to look cool at the end of the day when i i'll fly the drone over so you can kind of get a overhead view of the areas i've worked today [Music] [Music] so now i've made it down here to the ditch i dug look at the water right there still just pouring in man that's working great so it actually worked out pretty straight there look how damn that up that was it's starting to flow this way so uh i'll uh start digging the ditch all the way up there to where he's at and then tie it all the way back to the road so i'm just gonna dig it i'm gonna lay it on the downhill side so it doesn't dam up any water and uh i'll probably just make a pile right here and end up just kind of spreading this out and raising this whole area this is exciting i love doing stuff like this all right we are really about to drain some land now [Music] so [Music] i guess a long time ago when somebody pushed off that field they built a berm right here and you can see it right here when i back up and that was just keeping all that water from being able to flow down [Music] these little ridge right here [Music] i mean look at all that it's about to start draining down through here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i'm actually digging a little bit deeper i thought i was going to get wet in there i was looking out that way uh because all this silt and everything is going to run into the ditch kind of plug it up a little bit so that's why as you're seeing me dig it just call it you'll see the water kind of follow me actually backwards but uh as all this stuff drains in here that's just still kind of gonna give it a spot to kind of settle out in [Music] well that root finally fell out of the bucket it was bothering [Music] random piles in here i don't want to build a whole row of dirt because it'll end up acting as a a little dam as well uh kind of defeats the purpose of what i'm trying to do is get everything to drink i mean you see how nice the dirt is it dries out [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] making mud pies [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this is going to help so much my mind [Music] um [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] so lunchtime look at the progress though i'm almost uh two feet lower than ground level up here that's not a lot of fall but that's a lot of fall down here so that's really going to drain out this area right here and that is what i wanted it's hard to build a road when it looks like that look at how much water is flowing out of here that's where i started first thing this morning i'm gonna go up here to the ditch where i tied into it still pouring in up there draining all that from back in there and then that's the ditch i just dug going all the way up there to the road and it's flowing really well too but i mean all this was underwater this morning it's already starting to dry out on top let this stuff just sit here and dry and hopefully we'll get some nice weather and dry out pretty good [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] well at least the ditch i cut all the way through the woods got the road to drain let that sit here and work its magic and get all the groundwater pulled out and whenever it comes time to start building the road through here it'll should be dried out enough for all i gotta do is scrape the topsoil off there's not much tops below the base below it's pretty solid you can see where it just drove through there and didn't even hardly sink down it's just where that water's laid in here for so long it's just saturated that topsoil into a liquid mess so i'm gonna leave this alone and let this dry and go back over here to where i started and um start working on uh cleaning up that little area that the uh owner had already cleared down get that uh root break with the dozer so i brought the uh dozer down here i want to jump on it real quick and take these piles and push those back there to the back where it's a little dryer and uh see what i can do to kind of get this area right here to start draining a little bit better so hopefully before i leave it'll be dry enough i can run over it and grate it out a little bit smoother so here so so so so well it was clean rake works pretty good other than it's really really wet but not much i can do about that i needed to get all that stuff scraped off of it so i could get this stuff to drain so i got all the brush piled up into a pile over here i'm gonna come over the excavator and stack it all up into one bigger pile and then probably cut a little smaller ditch down this edge right here beside the road just to get any of this to run towards that main ditch well i sure to get everything nice and muddy today at least it was actually so wet it doesn't stick to the tracks too bad but uh they will need a bath when they leave here huh oh well fill it up with fuel and come back tomorrow [Music] you

Channel: letsdig18

Views: 478,575

Rating: 4.9264317 out of 5

Keywords: excavator, trackhoe, track, hoe, digger, bagger, volvo, komatsu, bulldozer, dozer, crawler, tractor, kenworth, trailer, W900, lowboy, hauling, loading, unloading, drain, draining, swamp, land, wet, farm, ditch, ditching, digging, clearing, root, rake, raking, pushing, grading, heavy, construction, equipment

Id: bNdeQC8cUXo

Length: 76min 31sec (4591 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021