Bloody Knuckles

We're pretty good about finishing what we start. We are usually quick with work and use any spare minute to forge ahead with this massive, continual project that is our homestead. But, we were dreading this one project so much that it took 8 months to complete.

We had to run our sprinkler lines under an existing 8 foot wide cement walkway. That meant burrowing under the cement and trying to run 4 PVC pipes through a pretty small opening. We knew it would be awful work so we did everything but that job for quite some time. We finally got sick of the open trench and crunched it out. It took about 2 months of Saturday's, lots of bloody knuckles, a few swear words, and some creative engineering to get where we are now.

Allen used a tamp bar, steel pipes, a hose and sledge to try and create the tunnel space necessary for all 4 PVC pipes to fit.

During one part of the process, a steel pipe Allen had been using got wedged under the cement. And when I say wedged, I mean the steel pipe was 5 feet long so fit perfectly under the cement and just out of arm's reach on either side. Allen tried everything he could to get it out. He finally got it unstuck, but not without paying the price.

Ouch!

Then, he put a 4" PVC pipe through the hole to contain the 4 smaller pipes we needed to run through. Unfortunately, the big pipe got stuck too. Allen, again, tried everything. We'd been using water to soften the dirt so he was trying to pull this slippery pipe out of a sticky, muddy mess. Not a recipe for success. Finally, he drilled a hole thru the pipe and hooked up a winch system to pull it out.

That ended up working really well. We finally had the space we needed and a hole that went all the way under the cement and came out the other side. But...

the pipes didn't cooperate.

Poor Allen. Totally defeated by this job.

One side complete with plants even! You can see the open trench on the other side.

We planted Lantana and a pretty ground cover with purple flowers on this side.