Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

flowerbug

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oh, now i see by that map that they have the maximum depth, four to five feet here, that's double what we see on average.
 

wyoDreamer

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I worked for a city in WI, west central WI. The city requires water mains to be buried minimum 7' deep to keep the lines from freezing. One year, they must have had a tiny leak in a mainline. The ground got saturated and that frost went deep! The watermain was 9' down and it froze and burst - in mid-February. What a mess to fix a busted watermain in negative degree temps. I felt bad for the utility guys.
 

farmerjan

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As a kid we never had a water line that was less than 3 ft deep and most were 4 ft down. That was in Ct. Freezing and breaking a water line in the "sub zero" cold north is a real headache as @wyoDreamer mentioned. Here in the mountainous area west of the Blue Ridge mtns, I think they require 30 " but I would never want a line to be less than 3 ft down. Better deep than not deep enough.
 

wyoDreamer

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When I moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming I was amazed to find out they only buried their waterlines 2.5 feet. After living there for 6 years, I realized they barely got any frost in the ground at all. It would snowstorm for 3 days and we would 6' snow drifts covering the roads and driveways - and then 2 days later we would have 50 degree temps for 3 days.
 

Britesea

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Well, Spring is busting out all over. We don't have any frosts predicted for the next 10 days, but I'm gonna hold off on my tomatoes and peppers etc until June 7. Which, incidentally, may herald our broody hen coming out from under the house with some chicks. I sure hope so.

We incubated a few eggs earlier, and got 8 hatchlings out of 9 eggs. They are now at the gawky teen age stage and eager to be allowed out of the nursery coop to roam around with the adults, but I want to wait just a little longer so they can handle any cold snaps. We usually keep them in the fenced coop yard for a couple of weeks, til they get the hang of coming in at night. Usually we have to round them up the first week or they will just roost any old where- and with all the owls and eagles in our area, that just isn't a good idea.


All my spring-planted crops are growing well, but the lettuces are the only ones I can pick right now. I do have a couple of baby tomatoes coming up on the tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse.
 

Chic Rustler

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Well, Spring is busting out all over. We don't have any frosts predicted for the next 10 days, but I'm gonna hold off on my tomatoes and peppers etc until June 7. Which, incidentally, may herald our broody hen coming out from under the house with some chicks. I sure hope so.

We incubated a few eggs earlier, and got 8 hatchlings out of 9 eggs. They are now at the gawky teen age stage and eager to be allowed out of the nursery coop to roam around with the adults, but I want to wait just a little longer so they can handle any cold snaps. We usually keep them in the fenced coop yard for a couple of weeks, til they get the hang of coming in at night. Usually we have to round them up the first week or they will just roost any old where- and with all the owls and eagles in our area, that just isn't a good idea.


All my spring-planted crops are growing well, but the lettuces are the only ones I can pick right now. I do have a couple of baby tomatoes coming up on the tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse.
wow its already in the high 80s here and thats unseasonably lower than usual. you guys dont have a very long season.
 

Britesea

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We have 100 days.... IF we are lucky. There are lots of records of snowfall in June, July, August, AND September (although usually not all in the same year). Gardening here is a combination of an Art and a Crap Shoot. I remember commenting on seeing kids wearing parkas and shorts in the summer when we first visited here, and was told "We Cherish our summers."
 

flowerbug

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wow its already in the high 80s here and thats unseasonably lower than usual. you guys dont have a very long season.

we've already had high 80s here too and now the days are more back to normal and the night time temperatures are even getting back down into the high 30s. :( this season is all over the place. also it started fairly wet, then dried out for about three months and now we're finally getting more rains. we really needed it so i'm not complaining, but this cold and wet will hold us up on some planting this week.
 

Chic Rustler

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we've already had high 80s here too and now the days are more back to normal and the night time temperatures are even getting back down into the high 30s. :( this season is all over the place. also it started fairly wet, then dried out for about three months and now we're finally getting more rains. we really needed it so i'm not complaining, but this cold and wet will hold us up on some planting this week.
we seem to be getting flooded daily. everything is siaked to the point that any rain causes flooding. my lawn is a foot tall and i cant mow because ill get stuck

more rain in the forecast next week.
 
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