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.

We have finished our first round of mowing the precinct. I have sent home the part-time employee since I now have a full crew devoted to our roads. I was a good thing as the weather has been rainy for much of the time since my last post. We have put in several culverts in the precinct, all for the county instead of home access. We put in two west of Lake Tankersley on CR1042 two solve a drainage problem in that neighborhood. We also put in a new culvert across CR1125 to replace one that was in poor condition. We have reapplied recycled asphalt to the creek bottom road on CR1680 and we have repaired a portion of CR1540 by tearing up the existing pavement, relaying the pulverized material, and topping with a good cold-mix layer. We are looking forward to our biggest job for the summer; the rebuilding of the pavement on CR1905. It should take us about two weeks to complete the job and has been waiting on a good long term forecast. Wish us luck!

Well, its been over a month since I last posted and, I could say we've been busy, but that didn't stop me before from posting more often. So... no excuses!!! We continued to excavate ditches until the end of May. In all we cleaned ditches on CR's 1605, 1607, 1609, 1330, 1332, 1333, 1335, 1360, 1362, 1123, 1125, 1040, 1042, 1046, 1048, 1360, 1350, and 1362. In all, I'd say it was the most popular thing we've done among the people in the precinct since I started as Commissioner. Almost everyone was pleased to have the work done. We had to get started however on our mowing of the right-of-ways and I sent the leased excavator back. I plan to start again in December with a larger machine with a cab on the longer stretches of roads so we can work even in bad weather. We split the crew during this time so our patching and road repair could go on. We put in culverts for Mr. Yeago on CR1046, Mr. Johnson on CR 1540, Mr. Stansell on CR1333, Mr. Walton on CR1362, Mr. Irvin on CR 1130, Mrs. Hendricks on CR1046, Mr. Black on CR1362, two for Mr. Chism on CR1362, and one for the county across CR 1125. We started our road refinishing on CR 1330 with a long scab from the curve to the intersection at the Old Paris Road. We also are pulling ditches now with the motor grader on CR1220, CR 1465, and CR 1695. We also should be finished with the mowing by the end of the month. I want to acknowledge the cemetary committee at Bridges Chapel for the up-grade to their cemetary roads. Since we can't use long term methods to repair private roads even in cemetaries, They opted to BUY the asphalt based cold mix themselves, no small feat, and we assisted them in spreading the material. Now they have a very impressive pavement throughout their cemetary.

We have been busy enough with the cleaning of our road ditches that the utility marking companies are getting a little testy about our calls to Dig-Tess. We have worked so far CR1200, CR1135, CR1605, CR1612, CR1123, CR 1330. We previously had done CR1607, CR 1609, CR 1332, CR1333, and CR1335. We are focusing on the residential areas that have had culverts but that are partially or fully filled in. I have put another crew on doing some digging out of soft spots and then patching the rest of the precinct. Greenhill Cemetary wrote me a request for some help around their property before their decoration event on May the 1st and we completed those tasks. The bad storm of April 24th also caused us to work some over-time to cut up approximately 14 trees that had fallen across the road and haul them off.

Here in Precinct #1, we have made March and April our "Ditch Months"! We may also make May part of that as well. We have been using our small excavator to clean out some ditches that have been needing attention such as CR 1607, CR1609, CR 1332, CR 1333, and CR 1335. These are small residential areas that have culverts but were mostly filled in with silt. We also have been busy putting in culverts for several residents on CR 1345, CR1357, CR1455 and CR 1200. We think that a free flowing ditch and culverts are a necessity to maintain our roads in an efficient manner. When the existing ditches dry out this Spring( if they ever do!), our plans are to use the motor grader to pull long stretches of the least populated roads to acheive that goal. We also have been trying to patch the holes after each rain to keep up with our repairs. Hopefully we'll get some warmer weather soon so that we can do some larger road maintenance. One day was spent with a tree service cutting some large trees that had been damaged during the Winter.

We have been taking every opportunity to get our patching done. I can't say were are 100% but we are close. Some spots with bad drainage have been patched so much that we have overlaid the surface. The roads addressed are CRs 1695,1620, 1770, 1905, 1680, 1683, 1362, and 1360. We also have been riding the precinct during these rain storms to pick up limbs that have fallen in or beside the roads. We also have been adding material to the holes around the precinct mail-boxes so the mail carriers can more easily get up to them.

The weather continues to be a problem. As we patch and repair the damage to our roads from all the rain, another system passes through before our material hardens and is washed out . But we continue to do what we can to keep up. We now have all of your equipment under roof and out of the weather. The whole project, the all weather materials bunk with concrete walls, the double shed here at the barn, and the single shed at the mixing field, in all cost less than $9,000.00, thanks to our guys who did the construction. In my opinion, dollars well spent. We were able to do some badly needed ditch work on CR 1340 for Mr. Newman. We also installed a culvert for Mr. Robles on CR 1435. Almost all the existing crossroad culverts have been checked and many have been cleaned out or unclogged. We have a fairly large list of projects to complete, such as the drainage ditches in our residential areas, but we will continue to try to keep up with the patching until we get some extended clear weather.