warm weather = terrible roads

The warmer weather we have had here for the last week has been a mixed blessing. On one hand, it's not so bitterly cold and there's little chance of freezing up a pump truck. On the other hand, it rained a lot last night and it's now warm enough for the ground to be thawed out most of the time. The result is that it's an utter mess in the field.

The last time I was in California, I was jokingly told that if it got cold enough, the trucks would just be frozen to the ground and we wouldn't be able to work. (Well, I thought it was meant as a joke.) Not quite. If it's really cold, the brakes on the trucks can freeze to the drums. See, modern trucks have brakes that set and the truck needs to build up enough air pressure to release them. Many years ago, it was the other way around which led to the obvious problem of having no brakes if the air system failed. Now, if the air system fails, the brakes get set and that makes a lot more sense. Anyway, while the trucks don't freeze to the ground, the brake pads can freeze to the drums. The treatment for that problem is to crawl under the truck and pound on the edge of the pads and drums with a hammer to jar the ice off. Or you can just lurch the truck forward because it's usually not every wheel that is frozen. Now that it's warmer, this isn't much of a problem.

The problem is that instead of the ground being frozen for all night and about half the day, it's mushy almost all the time. By mushy, I mean muddy. The recent rain has only accelerated the snow melt and there are many places in the field where the road surface is lower than the adjacent fields. This means that most of the melted snow ends up flowing into the road. That end sup creating a muddy road base that really has no firm base and that leads to very rapid rut creation. It's actually kind of fun driving a pick-up in deep ruts because I don't even have to steer. Of course the ride is rough enough to just about rattle out your fillings. It takes a lot of effort to get out of the ruts if you can make it out at all so you kind of hope they're going to way you want to go. If you've ever been on an amusement park ride where the car follows a guide rail along a track, it's a lot like that. Try as you might to swerve the car over the rail, you just can't get enough speed and angle to make it. Oh well, at least you won't run off the road which means we ain't turning for any oncoming traffic.