Archive for the ‘Projects’ Category

Pond Haven Railroad materials arrive.

Monday, May 12th, 2008

The 9 tons of Decomposed Granite have arrived. It didn’t look as large as the 7 yards of top soil I ordered years ago. I was afraid it would not be enough.

We started shoveling and filling in the path next to the stream. Once we got down to the lower pond, I had some more excavation to do. I decided to put a ring of keystone bricks around the redwoods. I wanted to make it look more pleasing to the eye.

After this, I started clearing all the weeds from the far side of the pond, they were growing too well without water so it was time to investigate. I found two places where the liner was below water. I pulled the liner back up and then noticed some very wet dirt next to the fence. I found the pipe for the pond to be seeping water. When I lifted it, the water started spraying out. I noticed a cut in the pipe. It’s my guess that it’s been there since the beginning and they never did a leak test on the pipe before burying it in the ground. Unfortunately, the people at Lowe’s had no clue on how to fix it and didn’t have any 2″ couplers. I had to turn off the pond and wait until Monday to get the right parts.

We started to clear the extra debris and dirt away from the pump and shed. We need to remove about 3″ of dirt. All of this material will be used as fill for the herb garden area. This turned out to be harder than we planned, as we started working on this after moving all the extra keystone bricks. Angie and I were both pretty tired.

You can see more picture in the Photo Gallery

We ultimately moved about 1/2 of the DG. I am sure we will have plenty (maybe too much). If so, I will ring the other redwood tree and lay the DG down on the ground as a road bed for the track that goes around the tree.

Pond Haven roadway has been ordered

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

After long deliberation and town hall meetings, the city council of pond haven has agreed on the color of the road bed for the new railway.

With a unanimous decision the council has picked Palm Springs Gold as the color. The city quarry will be delivering 9 tons of decomposed granite on Friday.

There will be a city picnic and bbq for all those that come out to help.

Pond Haven Railroad is on “track”

Monday, April 21st, 2008

The initial plans have been completed and submitted to the Pond Haven city council.

Phase 1

We have been given two restrictions on the design. The first is we have to excavate an area of dirt and create a right-of-way. The second is that we must install a low profile bridge over the lower pond as to not block any views of the area.

The clearing will be completed by May 10th, 2008. New earth, decomposed granite and ballast will be delivered on that day.

The first phase calls for 179 feet of LGB brass track.
The track will consist of the following pieces:

06 - 10000 - 300mm standard straight
01 - 10320 - L=300mm  bent-rail bumper
12 - 10600 - L=600mm  double straight
12 - 10610 - L=1200mm quad straight
15 - 11000 - R1=600mm curve
03 - 12050 - R1=600mm right elect. turnout
01 - 12150 - R1=600mm left electric turnout
03 - 15000 - R2=780mm curve
02 - 16050 - R3=1195mm elect. right turnout

There will be two bridges on the layout. One is the scale replica of the Delville Bridge that Angie’s dad made. The second is a low profile bridge We will have to build to current city code.

The construction schedule calls for completion of the first phase by the end of June. We will be working long hours starting in May to meet the construction deadlines. We hope that with the completion of the railway it will link the towns of Pond Haven with Glory falls and open opportunities that did not exist before. The ride along the Glory River is one of the most beautiful parts of this area and is not to be missed.

April in the desert?

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

What a weekend. The average temperature in my back yard was 95 degrees! It was 110 degrees in the sun and 98 in the shade when I checked it around lunch time.

I spent most of this weekend finishing the shed. It was slow going because of the heat. I did learn one cool thing… If you need to get roofing tar off of a utility knife, cut up some cardboard boxes with it. It was sparkling clean when I was done.

So I finished painting the shed, stained the doors, built the garden caddy and stained it. I had to cut off a few nails inside the shed for safety reasons. I caulked up some of the gaps inside the shed as well. I will do some final touch ups next sunday after everything has had a while to dry.

I have uploaded some pictures to the gallery.

Next weekend will be spent moving dirt and installing the last run of sprinklers. Anyone that wants to come help feel free to show up.

November Highlights

Sunday, November 25th, 2007

So it has been a pretty busy few weeks. The highlights.

* Cemented boulders into the hill next to the waterfall.
* Dug new hole to place new solid pond (don’t get excited, it’s only just under 4′ in diameter and about a foot or so deep)
* Removed all the keystone bricks and stacked them for future use (more on this later)
* Started moving dirt away from redwoods to back fill the hill. (this is taking a lot longer than I planned because of all the roots that grew in dirt)
* Started filling trenches for sprinklers
* Hooked up new digital controller for sprinklers (pretty cool unit)
* Planted some creeping thyme.
* Pulled out about 50 water hyacthins

Pictures will be coming later.