O/T the old bridge is gonna go tomorrow

I live right on the banks of a drainage ditch with a bridge right south of our lane. The bridge is about 300 feet from our house. The ditch was dug sometime in the teens so I assume the bridge was built about in that time frame. Tomorrow the machinery comes to remove and replace it with two tubes. The engineer said it'd take about two weeks. This bridge is between our two farm building sites, with my son's house and the machine shed to the south and our house and the shops to the north so for a couple of weeks we'll have to make do. I'm thinking of throwing a plank across the stream so our grandkids can get across to grandma's house and the chickens and garden. Hmmm, maybe I can talk them into making me a golf cart crossing too. (wink)
I grew up playing under this bridge so there's a lot of good memories of just sitting there in the shade pulling the leeches off my feet and ankles and watching the water go by on a hot summer afternoon. My son did the same thing and this spring the granddaughters were down there catching frogs. Anyway by tomorrow night it might be just a memory. The good part about it is when they are done there will be no narrow bridge to bother anyone's machinery and it will look a lot nicer too. I'll try to post a pic of the bridge as it looks now if I can. The other night I couldn't post a pic to save my life so it might not happen this time. Here goes---

Bingo! it worked.

fixerupper,

Neat old bridge. Great pic.

How is Mrs. Fixerupper doing with knee recovery? Hope it is going well for her!

It reminds me of the one we had here a few years back. It fell down when a big tractor crossed it. Much safer to replace it now.

go ahead and try to save it

Marilyn is doing OK with her hip. She's trying to wean herself from the walker and into just using the cane. The thing that's frustrating to her is not the mobility issue as much as it is the stamina and getting tired so easy. She takes a three hour nap every afternoon and that's something I've never seen her do before. She's on a blood thinner and has blood drawn twice a week. Before surgery they told her she was supposed to be careful eating certain green vegies because of the high vitamin K content. After the last two draws they called her and told her the blood is too thick. Couldn't be the fresh veggies from the garden could it? LOL Jim

Henry, I've thought about trying to buy the steel beams but I don't know what I'd do with them. I'm pretty much done building big projects so maybe I'll let em go. The county was surveying this bridge for replacement back in the early 80's but nothing became of it. Memories aside I can't wait for it to be gone. Jim

Jim how large in diameter are the two new culvert pipes going to be?

When I was probably about ten, the state replaced a bridge about a half mile from my house. I bicycled over there probably every day and bothered those guys. I can still picture some of them fifty years later. After it was done the bridge was a play site for the next few years.

When the replaced a bridge adjoining my property, they put the old truss bridge on property across the road and said it is theirs. Maybe they will give you the metal for the inconvenience.

fixerupper,
Glad to hear she is doing pretty well.

Call and ask them about the veggies... you don't want her to develop a blood clot.

Surgery takes time to fully recover from (have had several of them) - tell her not to get discouraged. All of a sudden one day, she will be 'round the bend with the worst of it behind her.

Sweet, thanks for the suggestions. Those fresh veggies are almost addictive and she's always been a vegetable eater. I was just relating the same thing to her about getting tired after surgery talking from experience. She's being very careful to follow doctor's orders about how she moves and does things like no bending over, no turning that foot in, not crossing that leg over the other one, but sitting down to rest is not something she does well. She was told it will be at least a year till the bone has grown into the implanted parts to some degree so there's a ways to go yet. Jim

Looks like a 2 day job instead of 2 weeks. Is the county doing the work?

Red, I really don't know how big the tubes will be. Maybe 60"? I do know they will be 70' long. This bridge is downstream only a mile from the start of the ditch so usually we don't have a whole lot of water going by. Where the ditch starts there's a 32" and a 24" tile feeding it plus the little field tile that come in along the way. I've only seen this ditch go out of the banks twice in the 62 years I've lived here and that was in the spring when we had water running on top of the ice. Jim

They tore out a bridge about that size down the road from me a few years back.
Brought in 2 rail road tanker cars with the ends cut off to use as the culverts.

(quoted from post at 16:27:09 07/16/13) Looks like a 2 day job instead of 2 weeks. Is the county doing the work?

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In the two years that I had my dump truck the small excavation contractors that I worked for built a lot of subdivision roads. I was amazed at how fast they got things done. They probably paid their people considerably more than gov't. workers and they all pushed to get the job done and on to the next. As a truck owner operator I learned quickly that it helped to mesh in and just "use my own judgement" as they would tell me, as to where to dump the material and to jump on a machine to move material as needed in order to keep rolling.