Things finally dried out enough to get some work done outside. Winter has basically skipped us as far as snow and freezing weather, but it’s been wet and the ground never froze hard. Last spring we had a little sink hole in this field, and today we finally got a chance to investigate it. Turns out the tile under the ground was plugged solid with dirt. There wasn’t much to clean out, but it took some searching to find the right spot. My flashlight app on the my phone came in handy. The bright LED allowed us to see inside the tile. If you recall I dedicated a blog post to that light. Enjoy these pictures of our underground adventure!
Digging to find the problem.
This is the first of three spots we dug down to, to see why the tile wasn't working.
Dad looking down the tile line with a flashlight to try and locate the problem.
Yep. That'll slow down the drainage.
It's dark down there. Grandpa asked if this was the first time I had ever stuck a phone inside a drain tile. It was.
Fixed it! We didn't have the right size clay or cement tile on hand so we slide 6" plastic tile inside the 8" clay tile. It's a tight fit.
Covered up, and good as new!
Tile lines have give us some problems over the years. We put in new terraces with vinyl tile in one field several years ago. But in putting in the new tile they cut some old clay tiles coming off of a sand hill. One spring I was out walking the field and found where one of those tiles had been cut. I had simply walked onto the area where the water was percolating up through the sandy soil. One step and I sunk up to my waist in a quick-sand hole. First time I had ever experience quick sand and, yes, it scared the %$@&#! out of me.
Several years ago I was harvesting corn. It was dry and there was a ton of dust in the air. The sun was directly in line with the cab, so you can imagine how well I could see in the waning light, all of which was in a cloud of dust. I stopped in the middle of the field right aligned dead center to a sink hole wider than the tires on the combine and about four feet deep. I’m sure if I hadn’t come up on the center of the hole and it was off to the side I wouldn’t have seen it and driven right into it. Close one!