Even though it is entirely mechanical, there is a "touch" required to make a machine do whatever job you are asking it to do with skill and dexterity. Yesterday, I watched Frank display a high degree of skill and ability. His backhoe is an extension of his hands.
The ability to reach out with a bucket, pick up a rock and place it precisely where he wanted it, was fun to watch. And if the rock didn't end up where he wanted it, a nudge, push, or pull with the bucket would put it in place.
And when it came to putting the load of gravel around the culvert, I figured he'd just back the truck up and dump it in the hole. Nope. Frank filled the front-loader bucket from the dump-bed then carefully poured it in the hole exactly where he wanted it. Too much gravel, packed too tightly at first, would lift the culvert up by forcing gravel under it. Too little, not packed tightly enough, and there would be holes beside the culvert which might wash out.
A little gravel here, a little more over there, another bucket on this side, and then we all got in and started tightening up the gravel around the pipe. Several more loads on the sides and around the pipe, brought it up to just below the surface level of the existing road.
That is when the Whacker, a gas-powered tamper, was brought into use. It was run over the gravel packing it down and snugging up the support beside the pipe. Finally, at last, the remainder of the gravel in the truck was dumped on the tamped gravel, and scraped and pushed level.
A few passes over the new crossing with the weight of the backhoe, and the road was once again passable without walking from the ditch. Wow, what a luxury that seems like. We take some things for granted, it appears.
The next and final Old Pick column was sent to the Recorder, and will appear tomorrow (Friday, Oct 1).
I was looking at the weather forecast for the next two weeks, and noticed something interesting. Every Fall we seem to have a period of warm weather and high humidity, as the seasons begin the process of changing. During the summer months, there is a very stable, and unmoving high pressure area over the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and southern Nevada area, which keeps our southern half of California from getting any showers.
The Gulf of Alaska continually spits out little weather disturbances, shoving them down along the Pacific Coast. Without the high pressure area over the southwest, those storms would come further down the coast. When they begin to hit the rotational air currents, set up by the rotation of the earth underneath, the storms would turn east and pass over the San Joaquin Valley, dropping rain showers as they pass over.
But the high pressure forces these storms to turn east much sooner, usually around the Seattle area, and they go across the face of the US from west to east, over Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, and on toward the East Coast. They get showers all summer, as these disturbances pass, while California basks in the sun. And often bakes in the sun.
This time of year, as the high over the southwest is beginning to dissipate so that the Gulf of Alaska can send those storms further south and put some moisture into the Valley, things get weird.
The Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Gulf of California, will have a variety of tropical and sub-tropical storms sloshing around down there. As the southwest high begins to break up and change, the humidity from the tropics can be pushed north, coming into California over El Centro and Mexicali, and often being shoved all the way up into the San Joaquin Valley. But the summer heat hasn't gone away yet, and now we have high humidity combined with high temperatures and it is miserable.
Of course, the folks on the east coast laugh at us complaining about that two-week period when we have to deal with something other than our "dry heat." But, delightfully, it soon passes and we get to have a long, fantastic Fall, with comfortably warm days, and great-sleeping-weather nights.
And, as I said earlier, the long-range forecast shows we will have some of those tropical clouds pushing up from the south until after this coming weekend. By about Monday of next week however, it looks like both the days and nights are going to be bright and clear. Mid-70s to mid-80s for daytime highs, and even some mid-40s at night. Yep, Fall is just about here.
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