The recent heavy rains and a plugged culvert pipe have been a burden on our lawn and our sanity. We tackle a very unsightly mess in our yard with the John Deere 755 compact tractor.
Wow, seeing this 1 yr old video today is amazing. My how far you've come and the problems you've solved over this year. Loved looking back at all your hard work and improvements knowing what I know today. Awesome improvements and now I see that the rock around the house was Soooooooo needed. A wonderful improvement. The water issue solved is the best part though.
Plant a hedge and then lay it, all along the field line? Could make a pretty effective natural filter and let nature do the hard work as would only need to heal in loads of whips.
Your family dynamic, proximity to each other is such a powerful thing. Lots of great times, help with projects, family meals, birthdays,Thanksgiving and Christmas. And of course, brothers and sisters being close with each other as well as the first cousins. I love it. I lived in the country for about 6 years. Not on a farm, just a house with like 3/4 of an acre, 1 hour long school bus right. Second one picked up means second last dropped off. I was thinking of the water problem and my initial reaction was a cage like you had tried. I think it needs to be a lot bigger. Tighter links in the fence but like I said much much bigger and farther away. Yes the fence will build up but I’m sure water still gets through? Or could you build something that goes over the grate that chews up the trash like a garbage disposal that runs on a float switch. Put a silt bag under the unit to catch any solids and the water will drain through the bag. Then you could just go and empty the bags every so many hours? Power would be an issue but running a an extension cord to the house.
The problem with the cages getting clogged is surface area. Get some stakes and a roll of chain wire fence. The longer the better. They will stop more of the stalks before clogging completely. Also using one along the yard. The field trash that collects can be left to rot into a natural berm in the long run, or collected. Instead of burning just pile it up for a few years and you have the best black soil you can get.
Agreed, another way is to install a French drain. If you aren't aware of what that is, let me explain. Dig a "normal" trench drain, lay some course gravel / rock in the bottom, recommended to add a perforated pipe, then fill the rest up with more gravel / rock. The water can easily penetrante the gravel / rock and flow through the drain. Even better flow if you use perforated pipe. But the gravel / rock acts as a filter for all the debris. And no mater how deep it is, you can drive and walk over the top of the drain because it's filled up with rock. You can even use it as a decorative feature to border your yard. The floating drain filter / guard sounds like a good idea, but I think you might be underestimating the force of water entering a drain. Just look at the whirlpool in the bath tub drain when you empty it. No matter which solution you choose, the ultimate result will be the same. The debris will be lifted, moved and dropped somewhere. Of course, if the field is laser graded to have a slight slope to it, the water will run off in that direction and hopefully into an awaiting drain. Debris will be moved by the water, BUT if it can drain fast enough it should move much less debris as instead of lifting and floating it, it will be pushing it against the friction of the ground. So you know anybody with a laser grading kit?????????? Have fun and make sure to film how long it takes.
I have a laser myself :) I've installed quite a few French drains as well. They work well for some thinngs, but not at moving a lot of surface water quickly. The water cannot enter a perforated pipe quickly enough during large rain events. It will just pool up again I'm afraid. I think we could incorporate a combination of things though and it could involve more rocks. Thanks for the great feedback.
@@digdrivediy if French drains were the best solution for all situations, they'd be the only drains we see installed. However, I would say that if a French drain isn't working for large rain events, it's either too small, has an error in installation or is clogged up. Whilst I understand how they work, I'm not the person to do the maths on what the right size is for a specific location. And of course, they will never move water as quickly as an open drain and no drain will work when the destination water level is as high as the source.
first good day, I like to watch your channel, here in the Netherlands there is what the Dutch are good at and that is water lol.. here they dig ditches in parts around a piece of land and the goal is that the land on which they are grown uses a lot of rain brings rubbish and that is why they dig ditches around the land and so you can determine the groundwater level yourself so that you have more control over what you grow on the land, also with the drainage of the excess water, the waste is in the ditches, which also ensure good soil... but even in a dry summer, for example, you have water for the land through those ditches. yes the Netherlands is small but maybe take a look on Google to see how the Dutch do it as farmers, greetings Stefan from the Netherlands❤
I'll never forget when you flew a drone over us County worker's when we chip n sealed your road. It's always a great video to go back to and watch. I even remember doing some ditch work and tile replacement by your home. You and your family were always kind to us even when our work was sub par. When we moved, the one thing I brought with us was a brick from the Scipio school house they tore down. I took a picture of that historical structure just month's before it was demolished. It's great knowing I have a piece of history here at home from your neck of the woods. Look forward to seeing your solution on keeping the drain from clogging.
It broke my heart when they tore it down. My husband actually went to school there for first grade. It had gotten pretty unstable and people stopped there fairly often to take pictures. There was a natural spring there also that always had cold water. My nephew's family own it, and they were afraid someone would have a brick fall on their head. We were all thrilled to get the road chip and sealed. Good job 👏.
Getting the road chip and sealed was one of the best summers of my adult life! When I saw the road construction signs first go up by the school house, I felt like I had won the lottery. In contrast, the summer that they towed on the school house is one of the saddest probably. I have the big arched window that was above the entry doors. One of these days you'll see a video of me putting it up inside my shop. I hope. I knew that you worked for the county but I didn't remember or if I was told that you were out here during that project. That is really cool to know. If I had been doing RU-vid more back then I'd have made a heck of a better video!
Hello Neil, My name is Thom Pasanski and I also grew up on a 80 acre farm in Yale Michigan that's in the thumb. Moved when I was 14 to the city of Detroit. sure do miss the farm. glad your kids love it also. get some horses. We boarded a few good luck with the skating pond.
Your girls are priceless. You are welcome to try my land scape rake for trash. I'm still trying to perfect raking weeds out of the lake. It does a nice job of raking the sand.
We'll try to hay rake before to sweep up the fodder. That is what they use in the fields when it gets really bad. Honestly, the loader doesn't work too bad at all as long as it is dry enough underneath. The problem is the resulting pile! Thanks so much for the offer though. Would be fun to try something else.
Research traveling screens, I’ve seen them used to clear off water intake grates for industrial cooling. They’re like a cage and a conveyor belt together and the trash gets scraped off into a pile away from the drain. It would require power but you could have it activated by rain water.
Build a chain link fence around the drain. You can buy one already made with a gate that people use for a small kennel enclosure for dogs. The chain links should keep most of the bebris out and away from the drain. Try it on one to see if it works.
Another enjoyable video into the life in the country. Something I wouldn’t trade for the world either. Once that is part of you changing is unthinkable.
Snow fence along the side of your yard will help keep the material away from your yard. Install it in a 30’ perimeter around the drain. Will keep the field trash away
I've done a snow fence before. Also silt fence. It is a pain to take up and down. Also the majority of the problem occurs during the spring time up until June. I was having to mow along the fence and the grass was getting built up alongside as well. It's just that I need the fence in place about 7 months out of the year :)
Try larger rocks around the drain with a larger diameter wall around the drain . The corn stalks are going to be an issue but the longer the wall the more the water will be able to bleed through the stalks.
My suggestion would be to buy some of the orange job site fencing and stake a 45 angle across the corner of the field protecting your yard and the drain. A hundred foot or so run of it would probably still allow the water to drain through because the debri would be spread over distance. Then maybe add one of the cages on the drain as well. It would be a bit of yearly prep work but probably easier than cleaning up the mess and I'm guessing there's no field work at this time of year so you wouldn't be in the farmers way.
It wouldn`t be the prettiest, but I think a cheap solution is maybe a ten foot around snow fence around that drain to keep debris out of that drain, maybe a simple fence door so you could go in there from time to time for clean out. I would surely have some sort of fencing to filter that stuff from blocking the whole drain, larger with more surface area, so it doesn`t plug so fast, best of luck to ya buddy.
For those trash racks what comes to my mind is something like the self cleaning litter boxes for cats but with a float attached to it. When the float rises a rake is activated, removing debris int a holding bin. Power would come from a rechargeable battery and a solar panel.
Create a large ring around your drain with large rocks about 3 feet out (the rock around your drain will work). Make the mound for the ring high (2 feet) and keep it away from your grate at least several feet in all directions (think of your grate as emergency overflow). You can use smaller gravel, but it clogs up faster; really you want to block the big stuff and the smaller stuff will flow right through your iron grate.
Hi Neil, I'm glad you came to your senses about moving to the city. If it were me, I would put all that green equipment you have to good use and build a berm along your property line. Let the farmer deal with the mess. (That may be you) As for the trash in the drain, if you're successful in inventing something to solve the issue, you'll have every city "beating the path" to your door. Another possibility is installing a silt fence in the fall to keep the debris from floating over your lawn. But that's pretty ugly and temporary in nature. We are currently dealing with sort of the opposite problem. Living in Georgia most of us have hillside homes on heavy clay soil. It's nearly impossible to grow decent grass on these slopes and erosion is the result. I'm currently installing a drain system hoping to divert the water to the bottom of the hill and create a swale in the front yard to hopefully try to induce water to flow uphill. Not really, but it will require a ditch-like lawn beside our driveway. As for the drive to town? Just ten miles for us. But the drive is beautiful. Especially now with the Pear trees blooming and the trees budding out. We grew up in the city. Never again. (I hope)
That sounds like a really interesting project you have going there Joe! I think your idea of a berm is probably eventually what I will have to do to keep it out of my yard. I don't wish it on the farmer though either as they are family and I'm wanting to solve the problem for everyone. I'd love to come up with a solution that works at the drain and then once the rain event is over you can just clean up right around the drain maybe. Thanks for the great comment!
@@JimFinlayson I agree and I've done nothing to impede the flow of his property. That's why I'm channeling it off and through our property. In addition, as it stands now, the water flows across our property and directly into and around our neighbor's house. They often have water in their crawl space. This is another reason I'm trying to divert it. We moved in two years ago and I was very surprised when the neighbor told me about this condition as they have been putting up with it since the home was built fifteen years ago. I promised them last year I would do something but now the erosion we incurred this spring forced the issue. Water can be a real pain. But, it sure beats the situation out west. They have literally drank the Colorado river dry.
@@digdrivediy Be careful with berms. They can also keep water against your house if it floods on the wrong side. Speaking from experience and a cracked house slab.
A possible idea? French drain ? Basement perimeter drain type design. Cut a swell using a rip rock and a French drain. What you need is a detention pond... store the max amount of water provided the room
I would look into water mitigation measures used by government entities. If anyone has over engineered and over complicated a solution to something its them.
Here in Ontario { Canada } ,I always hear people from the city buying some country land putting up a million dollar house then complain about the smell,what did you expect .I think a circle of that big O tube would work ,I like your idea with the poles going up I think I would attach the round floaty thing to the poles so the tube can move up and down but stay at the same place
We built a cage out of metal grating like you walk on in industrial plants. It looked like a dog house. As it stopped up around the bottom and the water would rise, it would still drain.
Nothing like un plugging pipes maybe a french drain along property line tieing into same pipe at end with a little nice old time stone wall to block debri, best it can
You may have found a solution to this problem, but where I live doesn’t quite get the debris that you are getting. Our field can flood (when it rains in California) we have found that tiling the fields help with the water especially when we get a lot at one go. The ground will get so saturated that it can’t percolate down fast enough but tiling with a French drain system helps, of course we also use ditches to channel the water as well. They can get clogged as well where we have driveways but usually it is no more than what can fit in a dumpster during one storm, a little easier to clean up. Maybe a big moat?😉😂
We love being country. We bought 7 acres of a 100 acre farm. The rest was bought by an LLC. I'm betting it will be sold to a developer and we'll be surrounded by houses. You have a real blessing there and like you said, the problems are good problems 👍
Okay try putting up a wooden snow fence out in the Field sy 5 to 8ft off your property line, you would have to brace it, it should help hold most of stuff from the Field
I don't have an ideas for the drain. But you could put some silt fence along the edge of your yard to help.keep the trash out. I had to put a fence along the north side of my property to keep field trash out, not from water but from the slight breezes we get
No is the answer to your title question. Trust me the suburbs have their own set of issues if any benefits. As far as your drain issue, the only way to fix it I think is more frequent cleanings during a storm. I mean the garbage will clog whatever is there eventually, unless it's cleared of the drain. Big or small cages, all will eventually get clogged. I love your pics of your land Neil, it always looks great.
Thanks so much Don. You're right about the frequent cleaning while it is raining. That works great and many times when I am home during a rain event I can keep it from plugging up completely and we have no issues whatsoever. The problem comes when we get a big rain overnight or while I'm at work and then it's game over. Thanks for stopping back into the channels. Good to see you in the comments!
Except you have to run over the trash or go backwards the whole time. The problem with the stuff is it gets so thick and piled up that you about have to push it so you can keep your wheels on the ground.
You had a mess we got a storm Friday strong wind bowed the shingles off our house tore up the county we live in in west Tenn, so I got to get new shingle job.
It's so nice that you live so close to family and work. We live in Mount Washington, KY, 7 miles outside the Gene Snyder (I-265), the suburbs of Louisville. I really like our little town, it has a great hometown feel to it, but it has grown really fast. Several subdivisions have been built in a very short amount of time, we live in one of those subdivisions. The issue I find with living in a town and/or neighborhood like this is, no one is from here. Most of my neighbors are just like me, move to and lived in Louisville for a few/several years, the city just got to be too much (expense/violence), so then everyone moves to the suburbs. To get to the point, people mostly keep to themselves in my neighborhood. There's no community here. On top of all that, it takes my wife 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to drive home 30 miles.
I can certainly understand the desire to get out of the city for those reasons. There's a lot of things we would enjoy about living in the suburbs, but probably too many things that we would miss. For us, the biggest thing is all the family around us. There's got to be a way to get those neighbors to interact with each other. When all of the snowbirds go to Florida, it seems like they develop great communities down there of individuals from all over the country. I wonder what is different?
@@digdrivediy my guess is, snowbirds have time to make the efforts of making and maintaining new relationships. Most of my neighborhood is working families; busy with work, school, activities, etc.
Hello Neil, looks like a lot of fun living in the country. I hope you don't have to much damage by the flooding. The only thing I could think of is to build a retaining wall or berm around your property , butt i never have had this problem at my home so I couldn't give you any good advice. Greetings from 🇧🇪
I love your videos. When you can see someone coming to your house from miles away you’re on the plains. To me the country is wooded and thick like where I live in east Texas. We are country down here. I can’t see a car coming miles away but I can surely hear it. No one would believe I can sit on my porch and I can’t hear any man made noises. Just Mother Nature out in the country. I’m the guy that always says you remind me of our Uncle Steve in Colorado. He’s your doppelgänger.
Taking a page out of Dirt Perfects field tile jobs it may help to build a catcher berm around the grate and possibly swale the water to it. Depending on the size of the berm and placement you could add bushes or flowers to hide it. I think with more smaller holes in the pipe it will accept more water and place it through a hole cut in the middle of the grate so that when the grate plugs the pipe won’t clog inside and still drain water. With the pipe sticking down through the grate a few feet the corn mess would have to float in over the top of the pipe.
It looks more like that field is overdue to be retiled. Then again, with those huge drains, wouldn't it be easier to install French drains? Even larger rocks over the cast iron grates may help, or not. I'm really not sure what can be done to alleviate the flooding issue other than larger gauged tile tubing in the areas that do flood. Adding more topsoil to the low areas that flood could help, but that would have to be done with the tiling. Good luck coming up with a solution that doesn't cost thousands. Love the bloopers in the end. See you in the next one, Neil and the Koch family 🥰🥰🤗🤗😘😘
I think adding some soil to our low areas could just be one of the best solution ideas there Susan. This field is well tiled but in a heavy rain event it just simply doesn't have enough time to get down through the ground into the tile. It collects on top too quickly. If we do our big project in the backyard this spring, we might be putting some dirt up front to kind of fill in the lower areas and maybe mitigate some of the trash that gets into the yard.
i would put a snow fence along your proptery then when it melts i can hold back some of the corn faughter left over in the field and you could also use the snow fence around the drain system to hold it back to reduce the faughter from pluging, just a idea, but i would set the snow fence about a foot or so back from the drain to give more of a area to cover
What about doing something like some ponds I’ve seen where they have a downturn on their outlet - put 2 90s on the pipe, that way the water would still drain and the fodder would float over
I can’t wait to see what happens the next time it floods, now that you regraded that side of your yard with the excess soil from digging the pond!!! Excited to see if it works 🙌🏼
My family farm was not far from yours south east of toledo, ohio. My Dad welded heavy duty cage to anchors to set in the ground. Maybe use an extra large tomato cage with 1/4 inches hardware cloth around it. Anchor it in the ground. Put the pool noodles stacked around it or put soccer ball sized rocks all around it to make a berm around the cage.
Neil, I live in the country in Illinois. My closest neighbors are 1.5 miles away. So if that doesn't significantly tell you that I'm surrounded by corn and bean fields then I'm not sure what else to say. However I've dealt with the same problems for years and what I have found to work the best is to make a fence around the drain with snow fence. It acts as a filter and does get alot of debris in the netting but it constantly runs water no matter how much trash is matted around. Good luck with this.
You just install an centrifugal pump equipped with a grinder system at the pump inlet with line running into the drain it just cuts up the debris pumps the very small down the drain in the washer out on the other end just like a garbage disposal. I never raked the debris, I just cut it up with lawnmower, chew it up and blow it towards the field. I’ve never tried it, but I think the snowblower might do the same thing and throw in further.
Figured you would use the broom on the front of tractor for the trash? We have a creek that runs along our property and when it rains hard the water from neighboring farm fields overflows it and floods part of or property. And they dont do anything for erosion control so the creek gets silted up and the problem just gets worse. That spring covid started we planted a huge garden and just as stuff was coming up, we had a foot of water running though the garden twice in the same week from heavy rains.
There is too much trash for the broom to work. Once it gets more than a 6" deep windrow it can't really move it any more. The loader has turned out to be the easiest and quickest way to get it off the grass. Just gotta find that line where it's dry enough on the lawn but the trash is still wet enough to hold together. That sucks about the garden. I feel your pain! :)
dig a ditch around your property big enough to clean it easily with your excavator. every year just before the rainy season make sure you make the drainage of the ditch large .or on larger or more grids. but make sure you clean the ditch every year. that's how we do it in the Netherlands
Love it Neil. Good luck with the float device. I think you’re looking at a real challenge. The only real solution might be having a MUCH larger drain. Like 48”. Which, is also probably not realistic. I’m with you. I can’t imagine lining anywhere but out in the country.
For sure Ed! It has been a challenge for many years. I've tried the snow fence route, had the county work on the catch basin - you name it. One of these days we'll come up with something.
Could you build a fence betwen the field and your grass that could act as a barrier to where all that junk would just collect onto the fence and then you can clean up just the fence line
You would have to weigh the practicality of this idea in relation to form vs function. Aesthetically, you might consider a retaining wall made of stone like the stone walls that we see throughout New England and on the English countryside. You can also construct a living fence using willow branches. There are some good RU-vid videos about that.
What if you took the existing metal grate off and welded steel round rod vertically around the outer perimeter of it. Then make a steel ring the same diameter and weld short pieces of pipe as guides that the the round rod on the base can ride up and down on and then zip tie your pool noodles onto the ring. You'll also probably have to weld a steel ring onto the very top of the round rods to keep them in line. Hope this helps or gives you some other ideas. Keep the videos coming, love your channel!
Passive…silt or snow fence along field/lawn to ditch. Socked drain tile 50’ each way of CB in ditch staked down. Trash will float for most part in ditch until water is removed. Active…if only you could afford a wastewater step screen😆 It would keep open and pick up trash. Well…there is a corvette in the family 🤷🏻♂️🤔😆 Seems I remember a cranberry grower installing a rotating screen around a shallow pond pump suction. Think it worked alright. Was it a combine rotary radiator screen??
I like the rotator screen idea That Corvette was not from my family but a family friend. My brother was just driving it. My parents have a Corvette though:)
Hmm I would think a V diverter facing the flow of water would force the “trash” left and right of the drain and vertical pipe like bridges use to protect pillars in the water. You just need enough so the water will drain. Doesn’t solve the trash problem but could help with drainage
That corn fodder looks like a mess to deal with. I am thinking planting a cover crop around the perimeter of the field next to your yard and drain may keep the fodder from drifting so far. Like a natural filter one planter wide.
Believe it or not this field does have a cover crop planted in it! The problem is our climate sometimes doesn't let them get it planted early enough to get established for these February type weird rains.
We live in the mountans here but still deal with these kinda issues. if you don't like babysitting your drains you could do what our neighbor did and put some sort of home made wiper thing that spins in a circle around it when the water reaches the set level. seems to work but also seems pretty complicated for no reason. depends how much you hate cleaning up.
I grew up in the suburbs most of my life, personally I didn't like it, I enjoyed old tractors, riding 4 wheelers and garden tractors and there just wasn't any room for it in the suburbs without getting into trouble, so we slowly progressed out a bit farther out where the neighbors aren't right next to you, and you can actually do stuff like ride 4 wheelers and garden tractors and stuff like that, wouldn't trade it for the world
We live in similar flat farming country in Australia. I built a earth dam like wall, that will catch the ground litter allowing water to run over the wall and away. I use a stick rake behind our compact tractor.
I would dig a deep ditch around my property like a moat and make like a 3 foot tall dike / wall on my side of the ditch Kinda hard to explain just writing about it
There are lots of good comments on the drain, as for the big pile of debris - start a compost side business. Grind it and mix it with cow manure, turn it, and make black gold.
an organic method would be top place straw bales like a runoff fence around the drains. they will let water through but not the corn stover. ask the farmer to do vertical tillage so he can keep his organic material in the fields.
The only answer to this problem is constantly cleaning it off. Or, if you can find or make some type of screen, not window screen, that cleans itself like on a combine. I’ve been trying to think of a practical way to add that to a submersible.
That's what I'm able to do when I am home during the rain events. The problem arises when we get a big rain overnight or while I'm away at work. The drain plugs and it's game over.
I've seen alot of over flow ponds that have a elevated drain opening so it has to pool up some to get to the opening the heavy debry sinks and doesn't get to the opening
Maybe sleeve like bag that can accordion up and down the hard part will probably be keeping it attached to the ground. Another thought they have those ring drains things for collecting trash around docks on the coast you may be able to reverse the idea it was part of that collect plastic from rhe ocean thing that mark Rober was part of
Good job Neil. Have you heard of bucket tamers? I might have gotten the name wrong, someone can help me with that. But anyway, they are bolt on the bottom of your bucket that lets you run your bucket on the ground but won’t let the bucket edge dig in the ground. Really good product. Cheers and stay in the country! God bless
Hey thanks Tom. Yes, I've heard of those edge tamers. I've had pretty good luck though. Just running the bucket flat against the grass. As long as you don't tip it forward it won't cut in.
How about something very simple like tilling the field before winter snow covers it. Then you end up with more soil erosion challenges, but each solution has its issues. You need to solve the problem, not the symptom. Treating the symptoms may change based on what crop was planted that year, aka how fine a filter you need to keep our debris.
Put in a couple of more drains like overflow drains on a roof. Even if interconnected they all won't get plugged. Build a berm. Build a retention pond. Move to my area where we pray for rain.
I don't have any solutions for you, although I think a berm that others have mentioned might be good. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I grew up in the city and wished it had been a farm instead, so I always enjoy your videos, whatever the subject is.
Another channel used something from May Wes that looked like an upside down funnel. Quick Drain - 8″ dual wall system. May still get clogged but the layers may allow the water to drain as the trash floats to the top.
Talk to farmer Chris & Dirt Perfect about girls tile? I would build a burm around the edge of your property to stop the water getting that far?? 🇬🇧🇬🇧👍👍
Put a front mounted power rake on the 755 with the mmm and collection system. Years ago a landscape company i worked with had a 60" gas powered power rake on the front of their 400 garden tractor.
