Living in Seinfeld World

Last week we went shopping.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed that Kramer had been in my neck of the woods!  It looks like he decided to paint the lines in the middle of the road to make the lanes nice and wide!  I am living in Seinfeld World!  

Angela

Crumbling Roads

This Winter has been harsh on the roads here in West Virginia.  It has been especially hard on a less than a quarter of a mile of road that is on a small bench with a creek down below it.  There are currently 3 different slips within that less than a quarter of a mile road!  This past weekend it rained pretty hard on Friday.  Saturday we went out to survey the damage and this what we found.

 

This is a new slip although my husband says that it isn't....  A few of the other neighbors also agree with me that it is a new slip.  The road may have been cracking there, but there was not a slip! 

This picture shows just how close the road is to the creek that has a 15 foot drop off down into that creek!

This is the chunk of road that slipped down sometime this past weekend.

This slip above is one that the county has fixed I think 3 different times over the past 6 months.  It just won't hold.  I've blogged about this section of the road before.

It really is hard to tell from this picture just how deep this slip actually is.  Take my word on it you don't want to drive over the end right here!  I personally wouldn't even stand down there on that slip!

Here is another slip that hasn't gotten that bad yet, but it is a bigger slip waiting to happen if you ask me.

This is what this slip looks like below it.  You can see that some of the road has actually fell down onto the side of the hill.

I'm not sure what the county is going to do about this section of the road.  Like I said at the beginning this has been a very harsh Winter on all of the roads in West Virginia.  All we hear is how they don't have the money to fix the roads.  That leads me to believe that it will be a long time before the county will fix this road if at all.  Unfortunately, the second slip is on our property.  We own both sides of the road for a little distance in that area.  One neighbor mentioned to me in passing that she is going to request that they dig out the hillside.  I'm not for that at all, but I didn't tell her that.  It is straight up and down right there.  I should have taken a picture of it!  There is also some huge rocks right there on the side.  Another neighbor told me today that he thinks they probably should close the road before someone gets hurt.  I somewhat agree with him on that.  The only thing is then I can foresee people with 4 wheelers cutting themselves a path through our woods to get up and around this slip.  I don't want that to happen at all. 

I haven't called the county about the slips yet.  I'm not sure if I want to.  If and when this road completely falls into the creek my house will be on a dead end road.  It might be nice to not have any traffic going by my house.  I have a different mindset, I know.  There are a few others reasons I would like to see this road closed, but it is a road that my husband uses to go to work.  It's also my preferred way of going anywhere when I go somewhere because it is only 1 mile of driving on a one lane road.  After that it is 2 lane driving to where ever it is that I'm going.  

Angela

Country Roads

Most in West Virginia know about the New River Gorge Bridge, but most don't know that you can drive down to the bottom of the bridge. I thought I would share a few pictures of our drive down to the bottom of the New River Gorge Bridge. Luckily the drive down is a one way road most of the way down. The road is a one lane, very curvy road with a few pull overs. It's not a road for those who get motion sickness at all! Once you get to the bottom of the New River Gorge Bridge area there is a small old silver bridge that crosses the river below. Angela

Road Repairs ~ Before & After ~ Part 3

Here's the final part of the road repairs that the County did to our road last month after I called them and made them aware of all of the different problems out here on our road.

Looking at the picture above you would think that if you needed to pull over to the side of the road that things would be fine. Not so. Since the grass is high you can't see the ditch beside the road. If you were to pull over right there you might would have totalled your car!

You can see it now that you are right there beside it can't you!

Just look at how deep and wide it actually is.

And since it is in a curve you just don't see it. The road is also very narrow there. There have been many times that I have had to pull off to the side to let someone pass. It is a good thing that I know where all of the bad areas of the road are located so I can avoid them.

After I called and made the County aware of the situation they came out and fixed it!

It's not the best but it is better than it was!

Now that it is cleaned out you can see what I was talking about!

Angela

Road Repairs ~ Before & After ~ Part 2

Here are a few more before and after pictures of the road repairs done near my house. Below is a before picture. You can see all of the water coming off of this driveway. Like I said in Part 1, these were the only 2 areas that had all of this water running off of them after a short rainfall.

The water is running off their driveway into the creek to the left. Around 2 weeks or so after I called the County Road Department they came out to fix a few of the problems on our road. Below is the after picture.

I guess they are trying to keep the bank from caving in by putting these huge rocks where the water was running over the side???

We'll see! This part of the road has a wooden bridge. It floods right here in this area at least 2 times a year. I'll take pictures of the rocks after that happens and post them for you to see.

Angela

Road Repairs ~ Before & After ~ Part 1

Around the middle of July I went to the store and came home to this. It had rained a little. I didn't think it rained that much at all, but look at all of the water that is running across the road down hill into the creek.
And a closer up look at the water running across the rain in the picture below.


I know by now you are wondering where is all of that water coming from. It is rushing off the side of the hill. My neighbor on the hill doesn't have a good ditch for the water to run off properly down along her steep hill of a driveway, so the water just made it's own path down the hill, through the road and into the creek.

They lost a lot of gravel from the run off from that little rain. Believe me, it didn't rain that much. No where else along this road was effected except for this location and at the bottom of where their driveway comes down into the road. I'll show pictures of that in another post.

Later I went back to take a few pictures of all of the gravel that come down over the hill and filled up the ditch. I called the County Road Department to make them aware of the situation also.

A few days later it rained again. Not much but just enough to cause more gravel to come down off the hill. So I called the County Road Department again to tell them that it is now even deeper than it was and the road was getting to be where it was impassable for a car to drive through. To the right of the picture below there is about a foot of dirt and then a 20 foot drop to the creek.

I will have to say that my pictures aren't doing it justice. It doesn't look as bad in the pictures as it did in person.



It was at least a truck load of gravel that came rushing down the side of the hill from the water running off because they don't have a good ditch along their driveway.

And now for some after pictures. It took over a week but the County Road Department came out to clean up this mess and to take care of a few other problems out our road that I asked them to fix.

There is no longer any gravel from my neighbor's driveway on the road or in the ditch line.

Well, there is some but they did dig out the ditch pretty deep. Probably to accommodate more gravel when it rains again! I am a little concerned about my phone pole that is right there beside of all of this mess. It did take me a year and a half to get my phone line up off the ground and onto poles. That's another story there. You see, living in the Country isn't as easy as you would think it is. We don't get any of the City privileges.

Angela

Tuesdays' Show & Tail

Welcome to the Twenty Fifth Weekly Segment of Tuesdays' Show & Tail! I hope everyone will join me every Tuesday to post a picture of two of your pets, wildlife or visit to the zoo and tell a little about them! Tuesdays' Show & Tail is about having fun, and giving us a chance to meet other pet owners in the blogging community. If you are visiting and would like to join in on the fun, please do so! Everyone is welcome. It is very easy to do. Take a look at my guidelines here.

Spring made her appearance this weekend around our neck of the woods! After church we decided to cook out on the grill and then go for a Mule ride. With camera in hand I'm always ready for anything exciting that might happen. We did see our first snake of the year! It was a small guarder snake. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the snake this trip.

I did get a picture of one of my neighbor's chickens out enjoying this wonderful warm sunny day. Don't they look happy! I'm sure they are enjoying their new found freedom from their cage.

When we were on one of the back roads I noticed a bee hive up in a tree.

I think this beehive is one that is leftover from last year. I am so excited to be able to show it to you! This isn't something that you see everyday, even in the country!

We also found a small group of goats by the road. Some went this way and some went that way so I was only able to get a picture of one goat.

It is always fun to go on a Mule ride because you just never know what kind of animals you might see.

Angela

Old Barn

One day last week the Sun actually came out! I had to go for a drive just to take in some rays! We really miss the Sun during the Winter months. It was still cold outside but taking a little drive with the Sun hitting us was so wonderful and relaxing. While on our sunbathing drive we found this sweet old barn and had to take a few pictures of it.


From the looks of this old barn I would say that it was probably used to store their tractor and equipment. It's definitely not a barn for horses or cattle.

I don't think anyone uses this old barn anymore. There wasn't a house close by it either so I have no idea if the owner lives nearby or not.

Angela

Driving on Marble Roads

As I drove out to town yesterday morning I couldn't help but to notice that the roads were a little different than their normal black top appearance. They had a light dusting of snow on them. When the wind would blow it would give the road the appearnce of Driving on Marble Roads!

You can see a barn in the distance at the bottom of the hill.

In Heaven the roads will be paved with Gold, but here on Earth they are sometimes paved with Marble, I mean Snow! Either way, Marble and Snow are both slick to drive on!

Angela

Old Porterfield Farm

In the Summer we love to go for long Mule rides. There is one road that we particularly love to ride on. We always pass this old farm. Unfortunately, no one is living at this farm anymore. It has been a long time since someone has lived at this farm. Someone does come and cut the grass from time to time but it has been years since anyone has actually lived here. I wish I had taken a picture of the old farm house before it tore it down. It was a beautiful old Victorian style home that would have been built sometime in the late 1800's. I loved just looking at that old house. When the family that had lived in that old house moved away or passed away they left the curtains hanging in the windows. It looked as if time had stood still when we would drive by. I could imagine the family sitting on the wrap around porch and stringing green beans from their garden to can for the Winter months to come.






Click to enlarge picture to see it better if you like. You can see the family name of Porterfield still hanging from the old barn.

There is a bird house peaking out from among the cedar tree that has since grown up around it from the time that the owner of the home put it there for the birds to build their nest and raise their babies.

I wonder how many birds were hatched in this bird house and what type of birds they were. I'm sure there have been hundreds over the years!

I just love the look at this old barn. I believe it would have been the barn that they would park their tractor in while they weren't using it working the fields and their land.

Here is a peak of what is left on the inside of this old barn. From the looks of it the contents of the barn have all been taken away as there is nothing left but the bare floor and posts and beams.

I wonder what type of farm animals they had. How they spent their days and how this old farm came to be where it is located at today.

Angela

Dreaming of a Mule Ride

We have been locked up in the house for almost three solid weeks! It is giving us cabin fever! Usually it doesn't get this cold and snowy this early in the season. This year I'm sure is going to be a record breaker for the amount of snow, the cold temperatures and the snow days that the kids miss from school and need to make up.


Right now I'm dreaming of a Mule Ride. Oh, how I miss going on a long mule ride. We always pack up some snacks and drinks. Sometimes even sandwiches and go on a picnic out in the middle of nowhere. It is so peaceful in the woods.

It is scenic in the woods. There are critters that you can only see in the woods.

It is so relaxing and refreshing to go on a long mule ride. It looks like this year it will be a long time before we get to go again.

Angela