Since we finished our effort to rebuild and/or clean out the ditches over all the precinct, we have really worked hard on resurfacing and scabbing our roads over the west and central sections of the precinct. We started off in June with a complete patching effort over the entire precinct so we could have the time to spend on needed projects this summer. We started on CR1475 where so much ditching had been done. From there we went to CR1362 and repaired several spots with scabs. That road has almost no base, as I have mentioned before, and what base it has is what we have put in during our repairs. Anyway, our work drew two thumbs up from Gayla Dodd, a resident on that road.
We then stopped and sprayed the grass and weeds at bridge railings, intersections and blind corners that we had cut down three weeks earlier and again this year, we got a 100% kill at those locations. Our biggest concerns in precinct one are the highly traveled roads like CR1200, CR 1905, CR 1670 and CR 1635. We began to extend the repairs to CR1200 made last year by a considerable amount, completing almost two miles of new pavement. I think that next year, we will have resurfaced all of the "haul road" portion of CR1200 and most of the other.
We started then on the overlay of the road that Luminant built and donated to the county. It was in serious disrepair after only one year and I asked Luminant for some financial assistance on the expense of an overlay. They agreed and we ran a continuous pavement for 1.4 miles from US271 Bus to FM 2152. It turned out very good, thanks to my talented and hard working crew, and Jeff Parchman at Gerhart Excavating even agreed to keep his dirt trucks off of the soft pavement for two or three weeks while the pavement cured. Unfortunately, somebody realized that we had built a fantastic drag-strip and scarred it up. Ugh!
We had a pretty bad wind storm about this time and spent a good deal of both daytime and night-time getting trees off the roads. But by the beginning of July, the heat was severe and a great time to use a cheap paving method we found in 2009. We take the recycled asphalt that we get from the state for their shared materials program, ie. free, windrow it down the road, let the sun heat it up to 100 deg or more, oil it and mix the heck out of it, then lay it down on the existing pavement as an overlay. Now, it not appropriate for our highly traveled roads but for out-of the-way places where traffic is light, we find that it works well and only costs us the price of the oil. We began on CR 1490, where only one house is at the end of the road. It hadn't been worked on in many years and needed it badly. We then went to CR 1635, CR 1435 and CR 1455 and scabbed several places. From ther we went to CR1360 (Daphnes Prairie road) and put that special mix on over a mile of road. With last year and this year's effort, we should complete that portion of road, that has not been resurfaced in twenty-five years, next year.
6T Ranch purchased some land along CR1550 and was rebuilding a fence. We were able to slip in front of their fence builders and pull a good scallopped ditch the entire length thanks to Mgr. Chad Parrish of the 6-T. We are now working our recycling project on CR 1680 at JR's Bottom and hope to upgrade that mess considerably.
In a side note, the negotiations on the Constuction Management Contract for the loop project is just about completed, and hopefully, we can begin pushing dirt in October.

We have now completed our ditch work for 2011. We still have more to do in the eastern third of the precinct, but the excavator was a rental and we sent it back May 26th so we could get started on some chores and a complete patching of the precinct. We completed CR's 1450 and 1452, parts of CR 1635, and parts of CR 1660. We installed culverts for Mr Taylor on CR 1780, Mr. Martin on CR 1345, for the county on CR 1680 and also for the county on CR 1317. We have also trimmed the early grass around the bridges, culverts and intersections and will come back in three weeks to spray the regrowth. That method has worked well for us for the last two years.
We have plans to patch CR 1400 before we begin our complete overlay. This is the road that was given to the county by Luminant and has been a problem ever since. We are partnering with Luminant to bring that road into county specs. We also plan to do extensive scabbing on CR 1475 and on CR 1362.

No big whoop since my last post..., except the most important work that we've done for the future of our roads in Precinct 1. We have been doing major ditch cleaning throughout the month of February and so far in March. People in the precinct are surprised and sometimes upset with the way the ditches were designed to look like and function. Every "old school" road man has told me that no matter how much asphalt or cold mix you put on a road, it won't last long if your ditches allow water to stand at base level or roll down the road instead of into the ditch. We have done parts of CR 1475 and CR 1465 in the Bridges Chapel area. Then we moved to the end of the Old Paris Road and worked the curve back to CR 1350. From there we moved to both ends of CR 1345. We also worked the frequently traveled CR 1317 between Hwy 271 Bus. and Hwy 271 By-pass. We just finished the East end of CR 1535 and will be moving to CR 1450 and CR 1452. I've been told people have given me the nickname "Ditch Don". Understanding the importance of this effort, I answer to it proudly. Precinct 1's crew should be commended for their efforts as well.
We also have spent about a week in February patching some badly damaged road from the snows we had this winter. Culverts were installed on CR 1468 for Mr Coil, on CR 1350 for Ms. Cole, on CR 1046 for Ms. Hendricks and we are going to fix a culvert on CR 1315 this week.
I know many are concerned about the selection of Pate Transportation by the selection committee ( Jerry Boatner, Darrell Grubbs, Mike Fields, Mike Ahrens and me). Let me say that we have been doing every thing we can to follow rather strict guidelines set forth by TxDot. The committee is working as a committee generally works, unpredicably.

Much has happened since my last post. We've had a transition in some of the offices, we've had snow twice and we've started our ditching effort one month earlier than last year. The new electees have been busy getting their Texas Association of Counties training and seem to be adjusting well. They are energetic and eager to do the job. So far, we've enjoyed a month divorced from the controversies that plagued us before the election which is good. I am committed to the effort to keep it that way!
The crew has given me a hard time about wanting to tear up two roads during the cold weather of early December. It has not been done that way before. We did however get both CR1312 and CR1030 torn up, mixed with cold mix and laid down in the middle of December. It seems to be holding, to the dismay of my crew. We do have some scabbing to do on CR1362 but could not get to it in time before the bad weather.
The latter part of December was spent allowing the crew to use up their accumulated vacation days, since they aren't carried over to the next year. We leased another excavator starting in January and began pulling ditches along stretches of the county roads. We began on CR1468, continued down CR1550, and started on CR1465 before the snow hit. That has slowed us considerably. We have installed two culverts on CR1550 that were needed and one on CR1340.
Also during this time period, we have taken a couple of days here and there to try to keep up with our patching.

We've been really blessed since my last post with some very good weather for what we do. There were a few days of stormy weather but overall we've been able to continue scabbing and patching and here it is, after Thanksgiving. We are all surprised but saddened by some incumbents being beaten at the polls however the new electees may do a very good job. The court is committed to working with the voters choices and doing the business of the county seamlessly with the new additions.
We've been busy with some soft spots in the road on CR1362 and 1363, which we then scabbed over after we dug out the places and back-filled with iron ore rock. The crew then scabbed some areas off of the Hart's Bluff road, CR1662, CR1664, CR1725, and CR1745. We then went over to CR1660 and CR 1435 to scab some areas we missed the first time through.
We started the side-boom mower around the precinct early in November. That machine can operate from the pavement and reach out to some "difficult to mow" areas and clean up some low hanging and broken limbs from the many trees that grace our roads. It was a beautiful site this fall to see the "tunnel of trees" changing color on many of our precinct's roads. This machine not only serves a critical service but also gives the trees this tunnel shape.
We did have to cut some dead or dying trees since my last post. Specifically, on CR1535, CR1048, CR1046, and lately CR1345, we cut and hauled off these trees to our mixing field to be burned during rainy weather.
Our biggest effort has been with culverts. We installed a new culvert for Mr. Barnum on CR1725, an extension on a culvert to accommodate Mr. Blair on CR1046, and a replacement for Mr. Young on CR 1048. We installed a culvert for the county across CR1362 to replace one that had rusted and collapsed. We also replaced a culvert for Mr. Martin on CR1345 and cleaned up some trees near his gate. Finally, Mrs Cathcart on CR1435 has had water run into her house in years past because her house pad sits below grade from the adjoining lot. We installed a concrete tile culvert and deepened the ditch by her house to prevent the run-off from the road adding to the problem during a torrential downpour.
We continue to press on with the counties duties concerning the loop project. Despite what was written in the paper quoting individuals involved with acquisitions, we stay active in overseeing the contractors in all phases of the process, including acquisitions, behind the scenes. But we have not, nor will we get involved with dollar amounts during the process of obtaining the property necessary for the project. We feel our presence would be counterproductive in that area to the county's tax-payers as a whole.

I know, I know, it's been almost two months since my last post so I'll make this quick. From the time of my last post until the 10th of September, we cut some dead trees on CR1200, CR 1342 for Mr. and Mrs. Hill and one on CR1635. We also did some maintenance on our equipment on one rainy day. We cleaned out a culvert on CR1200 that one of the utility companies had covered with dirt.
On September 13, we began extensive resurfacing on portions of CR1200. Starting on the TLI trucking portion, we resurfaced much of the road between there and the haul bridge. We also did several places up to CR1345, where our responsibility becomes that of Precinct 2, our partner on this shared road. We finished work on CR1200 on September 24.
On September 20, we started mowing the right-of-way for the second time this year. He completed his circuit of the precinct on October 15.
We also took time during this period to make 3900 tons of our own oil blended dirt for light paving. On September 27, we began addressing resurfacing needs in the "middle" portion of the precinct, beginning on CR1468 and then moving to CR1455. We also repaired a portion of CR 1465. We had a minor emergency on CR1360 when a culvert separated during a rain, allowing the pavement to fall through. We installed a new large culvert at what we refer to "the big ditch" and resurfaced.
On October 14, we moved to the development west of Lake Tankersley and resurfaced portions of CR1040, CR1042, CR1035, and a larger portion of CR1038. From there we moved to CR1660 and repaired the road on one of the curves and resufaced several parts of that road. We also installed culverts for Mr. Blake on CR1048 and for Mr. Miller on CR1535. Today, we picked up limbs blown down during the weekend's strong but much needed rain.
As a point of reference, my foreman said, due to the good weather and the reclamation money from the pipeline company, we have already done as much or more road resurfacing than in any year he can remember in his twenty + years with Titus County!
Hopefully, I will not be as negligent posting the next month as I was the last two!

It has a month and a half since my last blog. We have been taking full advantage of the extremely hot and dry weather since my last post. As I mentioned before, our big job of the summer was a complete resurface of CR1905. I must compliment my employees for a wonderful job on that stretch of road. I am so impressed that I am going to stripe that road like the state does. We also scabbed a portion of CR1430 down to the turn to CR1535. We didn't immediately finish CR1430 because the remainder called for a different process that was more cost effective for a lightly traveled section. Last week, we did finish that whole road however. We worked several weeks on a road best described as a disaster. The outlying section of CR1360 was in terrible shape simply because it had never been shown much attention due to its remoteness and the lack of frequent traffic. We applied the method discribed in the last post of pulling ditches, applying recycled asphalt, and oil to make an inexpensive paving material suitable for that road. Again, it went down well and, if it holds up well, we will do the rest of the road next year. We scabbed portions of CR1250 which is way out near Franklin Co.. During this work, we also took time for some tree cutting after a storm, a charitable repair of the pavement for the MPISD Transportation Dept. and picking up junk that people throw out on the county right-of-way. Just this week, we did some needed repairs on CR1680, CR1683, CR1690, and CR 1670.