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.

See, I told you I have been having issues with my computer! I'm not really repeating myself, I just didn't think the first entry posted yesterday.

Sorry that I haven't posted lately, but my hand-me-down computer has been on the fritz since last week. We have finished for now our improvements on CR1200. We have more to do, but I'll wait for the new budget year in October. We will probably move to CR1485, CR1775 and CR1695 for our next projects. We hope to get to finish the repairs to the roads used by the pipeline, CR1550, CR1680, and CR1780, but we must wait for their damage money. We have been finishing up our mowing of the precinct and the spraying of the right-of-way. Also we have been taking advantage of the unusually warm weather by making our own oil sand at our mixing field.