Today was a bit of a frustrating day for Rick and his son. We just came off two straight days of rain which made for a big mess of goopy dirt all over the bank. The two of them got started right away with moving dirt and trying to set rock, but because of the goopy mess (not to mention water still running out of the bank in all the usual places after a heavy rain - hence the need for a retaining wall), they weren't having any success. It was so bad that Rick had to leave to go get his dump truck so that he could remove the goop and then see what he could do. Of course, since he had made a trip to the quarry the day before, his dump truck and trailer had all the rock loaded on it. So after returning, he unhooked his trailer and unloaded the rock from the dump tuck so that he could fill it with the wet dirt. 

Once Rick got the soggy dirt out of the way, again they tried setting rock, but due to the water seepage from all the different areas of the bank, the difficulties continued. So Rick decided he'd need to dump the dirt and get some larger gravel rock to give him the ability to set rock irregardless of the seepage from the bank. Upon returning from the quarry and laying the gravel and using it for back-fill, they were finally able to set rock, but then had trouble finding rocks to match-up/fit against the rocks they had already set. So about 6:30pm, they decided to call it a night and start fresh tomorrow.

One thing they discovered as they dug to find the starting point of the drain that got broke, was that it was a "drain from nowhere." Just a couple feet from where it was broken, it was capped off with a perforated cap. There was river rock in front of it to facilitate drainage, but it is literally catching water from the soil in the bank and is not connected to another drain pipe. With that discovery, it was decided that there really is no need to repair the drain, but rather a simple fix of filling it with drain rock and allowing it to continue to do it's job is all that is needed.

Here's the bank after two days of rain.

This gives you a clear view of the goopy dirt situation.

This is what they were faced with and why they had trouble setting rock; it was too mushy to get a stable foothold.

It's amazing to me that although it had been about 16 hours since the rain had stopped at the time I took this photo, how much rain water was flowing through our bank. This is the water flowing through the broken drainpipe.

Another good view of the goopy dirt.

Unloading the 3rd round of rock from his dump truck.

Loading the unusable wet dirt into his truck.

Rick tapped into this storm drain from the side you see here so that the french drain he is planning to put in will flow right into this catch basin.

This is the drain from nowhere. What you see here is the starting point for the drain that leads into the storm drain.

Our driveway is getting a bit messed up but it will be all freshened up when Rick is done.

Setting the base.