Rain, rain, and more rain. We have been able to catch up on some equipment maintenance. Some of the larger problem trees and some fallen trees around the precinct have been cut up and piled to burn. The few semi-dry days this week have afforded us the opportunity to do some patching that has been neglected while we were building roads the last two months.
The County has had the last of the budget and tax rate hearings on Monday. I think from the questions posed, we satisfactorily explained the rate and the reasons for the budget changes. The Commissioners as a whole took the lead in giving their employees a small raise, but paying for it without increasing our budget allotment. We all are carrying a certain amount of contingency money that we will have to do without next year. I think that is responsible and sensitive to the harder economic times.

We have now finished the immediate improvements to the "Pipeline " roads. We do have CR1905 yet to complete, but we have been working hard and fast to beat this rapidly approaching fall temperature. The rain and early onset of cooler temperatures may cause that to be postponed until late spring, early summer. We surfaced the bottom road on CR1680 with the ground up asphalt called RAP. It will be damaged every time it floods that road (often!) and we can blade it back fairly easily. The high ground was surfaced with RAP mixed with oil as an experiment and it layed down well and appears to cohere fairly well. We have other areas of the precinct that are lightly traveled that might benefit from this method because it makes a good surface and is inexpensive.
Some people in the precinct don't know that if you need a culvert for your property, call us. We will come out to assess the need, tell you what size culvert to buy, and we will install it for FREE! We have had some people try to put it in themselves and we can't let them do that because the bar-ditch belongs to the county. We have to maintain it so it needs to conform to certain specifications. If you need one, give us a call.
On the "local option" election, I don't really care one way or the other. The way it is now is acceptable to me. I happen to drink alcohol and have no problem driving out of town to purchase my needs. However, I am sensitive to the arguement that it would boost local sales tax revenue considerably. As far as the Court calling for the election, it is our responsibility to respect the lawfully submitted petitions and let the voters decide the issue.

We finished to repairs to CR1612 just in time before school started! The work has begun on the remainder of CR1550 and the first part turned out very well in spite of some very hard rains. The road was broken up, ground up, mixed with crude oil, and was laid back down. We are using our new Caterpillar motor grader htat does such an exacting job of finishing the surfacing. The good news is, it's costing less than the depreciation on the old one! In my next post, I will talk more about the "local option" elections here in Titus County.

Precinct #1 hit a bonanza on the auctioning of our equipment. The items brought considerably more than we expected. This will enable us to buy a bigger, more suitable tractor and side-boom mower plus allow us to lease a Caterpillar motor-grader for the same money.
We have finished one-half of CR1550 and have started rebuilding CR1612. We will return to CR1550 after we finish but we needed to complete the repairs on CR1612 before Hart's Bluff School started their classes. We have also started over on mowing the precinct due to the unseasonal rains.

Our precinct has been very busy since the settlement with the pipeline company. We ordered 300 tons of paving material that week and got it put out Thursday and Friday on CR1550. It was just a start though and then the rains came. We spent all last week cutting trees and cleaning up after the strong rains. We were able to put in an extra culvert on CR1612 at the back of the new development of Stonebriar. That particular property has created more run-off than before and I felt that more road drainage would be beneficial. We have 150 tons more of paving material to be delivered tomorrow and with the help of some dry weather, we should be back on CR1550. By the way, precinct 1 has some equipment on the Auctioneerexpress,com website in case anyone needs a motor grader or a side boom mower!

Well, the hens finally came to roost. After several attempts to negotiate a lower figure, the pipeline company finally settled for no less than the amount I need to complete the repairs to the roads that they damaged. We are busy winding up any project that can't wait for a month or so while we are repairing the damages. We added another culvert to CR1612 to handle the extra run-off from the Stonebriar development, today. We covered the repairs to CR 1355 and CR 1357 with topping and we scabbed a small section of CR 1485. Curtis is still making his way around the precinct, trimming back the limbs and cleaning up where the mower couldn't get with his side-boom mower. Next week, we should begin resurfacing CR 1550 and rebuilding the worst parts. All said, the pipeline company was fair to our precinct in both the negotiations and the settlement.

If you will notice around bridges, curves and corners, our spraying of the roadside has done extremely well. I told the crew that I had some secrets to improve the kill on the spraying, all legal and according to the label, left over from my days on the ranch. They still work!!! We have been digging out some soft spots around the precinct, filling with iron ore, and began covering with asphalt today. We have more to do tomorrow before we do some basic patching on Friday.