Drain Repair

The last few times that we have had thunderstorms that dropped large amounts of rain, the water has rushed across the driveway. I checked out the ribbed plastic drain pipe that I had put in under the driveway and one was full of mud and the second one was half full. I decided to replace the plastic pipe with some light weight PVC, so I began yesterday by scraping the area along the bottom of the slope behind the house with the grader box on the back of the blue Ford tractor. I also used the scoop to dig out a trench near where the water was supposed to drain into the pipe.
   
Next I used the scoop to dig out the old pipe. I tried to lift it out by hand after removing the dirt above it, but there was no way. It was too full of mud for me to lift it out and with the suction created by the wet dirt around the pipe it was not coming out without using the tractor. That's what I did, simply put the lip of the scoop under the pipe and lift it out. I pushed them over the top of the dirt pile I had made, then drug the two pipes out of the way. They must have weighed over a hundred pounds each. Next, I used the scoop to dig a larger trench to hold the two PVC pipes. I straightened the ditch and made it a little deeper on the down hill side to allow the water to run out. I placed the two sets of pipe in the ditch and took a break. Stacey and I went to town for lunch.
   
When I returned, I checked the position of the pipes and used a shovel to dig and level a spot for a flat rock under the discharge ends. Linda came home and went to the mum patch to pick some gourds. I set two cement blocks on top of the pipes to hold them in place while I shoved dirt over the top of the pipes with the tractor scoop. I leveled the driveway with the grader box on the back of the tractor and also used it to remove the dirt from where I had cut the trench that will feed water to the drain pipes. I parked the tractor as it was too dark to work.