2 Engineers Retired

I am guessing that everyone has a “Big Hill” in their lives.  That little area or thing that you know could be made better or easier but instead we put our heads down and power through rather than take through the trouble to fix it. Check out how high the markers are ! In our case, on our challenging road, it is the Big Hill.  In fact the Big Hill is what makes the road challenging.  The Big Hill is big (hence the name) but more importantly it is darned steep.  Too steep for the county road people to consider it a proper road.  Too steep to do without a bit of a running start.  Too steep to get up when icy.  Just plain steep. And worse than plain old steep the actual pitch of the road varied.  Now, for all the complaining that pretty much everyone does when they travel on this road, it is orders of magnitude better than it was when we built here.  Then the road was twisty in addition to steep and variable, and the surface was cru...

Well – we ran out of rocks… Okay – there are still rocks somewhere on our property but we ran out of ones that were close to the road and the right size, and obtainable without really scarring the landscape forever.  And we did get  layer along side the causeway on both sides – though the top was lower than the road surface.  From there the idea was to put on relatively coarse gravel out and over the layer of big rocks.  All was well ?  (maybe?) As it turned out all was not well.  We talked to the experts, our local sand and gravel guys, who know this stuff and they advised that more big rocks would be advantageous.  They can stack better and higher than the coarse gravel and will improve the stability.  So – we had them bring in another 3 truckloads of big rocks. A dump truck's worth of rocks to deal with It is way easier to build up edges with truckloads of rocks rather than trailer-loads of rocks.  No surprise I gu...

The Kingston area is well known for its prisons.  Some are tucked off on lesser roads or highways near to the city as one would expect – but there are a few that are, or were, right smack in town.   One of these is the historic Kingston Pen. Surprisingly lovely stonework (main gate as seen from Inside) The Kingston Pen is a magnificent and imposing looking structure on the waterfront within Kingston city limits.  Kingston Pen was British North America’s first penitentiary opening in 1835, about 30 years before Confederation, making it about 180 years old.  The initial name was the “Provincial Penitentiary of the Province of Upper Canada”. It initially held both men and women (though separated) and the youngest inmate was a mere 8 years old !!!   Of course that was a very long time ago.  Also a very long time ago one punishment – solitary I suppose – involved putting the inmate into a h...

  Our road is considered by some to be, well, challenging. The Causeway One stretch runs a single lane through the middle of a beaver pond.  We have affectionately named it “The Causeway”. Now the causeway is stable, but not too wide.  And it seems to be gradually becoming more narrow.  One reason is basic, there is vegetation on either side of the traveled part of the road, the non graveled part, and as it grows it does have a tendency to creep inwards.  This is being trimmed of course, but well nature is nature and it likes to expand its foot print.  However the bigger issue is, you guessed it, the beavers.  By now I am guessing that there is an assumption that we dislike beavers, but that is not true – we find them to be incredibly fascinating.  We do however find them challenging, and in some cases, like the fencing around the conduits the challenge is quite fun – and it feels like a real win when something works. On to ...

Kind of a snowflake Well – as far as I can tell this has probably been the rainiest summer since we started coming to the lake.  That being said, I am not entirely sure since before we moved here full time, if the weekend weather was looking like rain – we could find something else to do elsewhere. A whole lot of these ... Makes a field that looks like this Once you live here though, the rain, and the sun are part of the fabric of every day.  There is no question that living at the lake is absolutely marvelous during good weather.  And by that, I mean sunny, with a light breeze perhaps, and low humidity.  And sometimes we get that – last year for example when there was a drought.  But this year – we are wet, wet, wet. So what is a major benefit of this wet summer weather.  Well of course to anyone reading from western Canada the obvious benefit is the lack of forest fires.  And if we...

(Sorry – couldn’t resist) As I mentioned last post one of the dams we opened had a culvert in it.  Now theoretically a culvert is used to allow water to pass from one side of the road to the other (or perhaps from one side of a dam to the other) – but of course if the beavers get at it this does not work too well and we are unplugging a culvert instead of opening a dam.  There is a plugged culvert in a dam at the top of this hill The plug at the culvert primarily occurs on the upstream side for some reason.  A straight up screening or grating across the pipe does not help as this will also be blocked up.  (These are both diligent and resourceful creatures). What we have found is that by installing a vastly expanded screened area on the upstream side there is not enough flow through any part of the screening to attract specific attention with a result that it is pretty much left alone.  Beavers follow sound to determine where to build...

One of the ponds on the drive in to our place Here at the lake one of our closest neighbours are beavers.  There are a multitude of ponds, dams and houses in the immediate area and while they can be pretty and interesting they impact various aspects of our lives – but mainly the roads. Lots of lilypads Management of the levels in the ponds can be a constant activity depending on the rains.  If the pond levels get too high adjacent roads will flood.  Roads in this area are private and maintained by local property owners.  Flooding will put the road underwater, or in some cases wash out a channel across the road.  As well, beavers crossing the road from pond to pond start to wear down the edges of the road which gradually results in it becoming more narrow. Luckily we knew that the road under this flood was solid As the waters rise in the pond (due to rain perhaps, as certainly is the case this year) there...