The Miller | December 4, 2009
A rock got into the hose and plugged the end. Jimmy was knocked over backwards into the water. After that I tried to stay behind him. Notice my new higher boots. They weren’t high enough cause I got cement poisoning again. Jimmy had cement poisoning on his shoulder … but he kept at it. Also [...]
The Miller | December 4, 2009
It felt like I had sand in my boots. Charlie and Dave kept talking about sand in their boots. When the day was over and we took off our boots …. there was some skin missing. Jimmy told us it was cement poisoning. He told us to use white vinegar on it. Karen had some [...]
The Miller | December 4, 2009
Here we are trying to fill one of the holes with concrete. I’m holding a piece of plywood so it will stay in the hole until it dries. The idea was to blow the concrete to the back of the hole and force the water out. The shotcrete has more cement in it and less [...]
The Miller | December 3, 2009
Using my tractor to help them reach the top. That is Jimmy Nickles I’m talking to. He was the forman when Midwest pumped the concrete out to us in phase 2 of the dam work. He also pumped the concrete into the tunnel so I could fix the foundation. He suggested the shotcrete or gunite [...]
The Miller | December 3, 2009
Charlie is drilling holes for re-bar and Carl Redensky is cutting and hammering it in. Midwest Pumping is blowing the concrete onto the old dam. You can see pipes coming out of the dam. We couldn’t get the water completely stopped so I started sticking the pipes into the holes and putting handfuls of concrete [...]
The Miller | December 3, 2009
We were getting the water lower and lower on the north side. So, we started pressure washing the old concrete and drilling holes for re-bar. Several folks helped with this. Here is a photo of Ethan pressure washing. You can see the old wood dam sticking out of the concrete. I cut most of this [...]
The Miller | December 2, 2009
It started raining. You can see the water moving on the upstream side of the dam (mill pond). And, you can see the temporary dam I built on the downstream side. The rain helped by flushing out a lot of lose dirt in the mill pond. You can also see there is less water coming [...]
The Miller | December 2, 2009
More and more water is coming through the gates. (Because we are moving it to the south side). So, I had to build a temporary dam on the downstream side to keep the water on the south side and going through the newly opened tail race.
The Miller | December 2, 2009
The big plan was to open the south side of the mill pond and move the creek (water) to the south side. There was a large log jam up at the point (upstream end of the island). During the big flood of 2008 it was completely washed out. First time I ever saw it without [...]
The Miller | December 2, 2009
I dug as far as I could with the tractor. The mud was sooo bad I kept getting hung up. So, Karen and Ethan came out to help me shovel it. You can see the water is starting to move.