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.