The Orange Barrel

Mom always worried about the creek in the back yard and how it was meandering differently and would soon take down one of her favorite trees.  The neighbor eventually cut the tree down for Mom and Dad, so she wouldn't have to worry about it falling into the creek.  After we moved in, I noticed the drainage pipe from the street to the creek had broken off at the creek. I had a feeling this was the cause of the changing creek path.  Look closely at the lower left of the next two pictures and you can see where the drain pipe had broken off.

The following pictures are where Mom had her favorite tree. Instead of the tree falling in, Mike fell in head first when I wasn't home.  The neighbor had to come help muddy Mike out of the creek. I told Mike he wasn't allowed near the creek alone ever again, but he didn't listen to me.

I called our alderman who quickly sent out a crew to take a look at our issue.  The city crew took many pictures. The man in charge told me it would be an easy fix as the other guy placed an orange barrel at the edge of the creek.  He said they would have to wait until freezing weather so the equipment they would have to drive to our backyard, wouldn't tear up our yard.  We waited, and so did the barrel.

During the first freeze, we thought for sure they would be out to fix the pipe. Every once in awhile a city truck would come out and we would get excited but it was usually just a crew coming to look and plan. One time they even said we were next on the list!  How exciting. But then a snowstorm came and it seemed the pot holes in the streets were more important.

We waited and waited. Soon our first winter was over and still no city guys to come fix the pipe,  but we still had the orange barrel. We thought it looked nice with our Naked Lady flowers.

The flowers were long gone and the orange barrel was alone.

I emailed the alderman and explained that we had been waiting a year for the fix.  Again, a crew quickly came out to look.  Since I am now working, Mike would have to be in communication with the city. He found out the guy in charge who I had talked with that first time, no longer worked for Davenport. Our work order had been pushed to the bottom.  Again, we would have to wait until a freeze. 
Finally our day came. They were here to dig up the ground, connect the pipe and put in some rock.

They cemented the pieces together and would be back the next day, after the cement dried, to fill in the rock and dirt.  Then this happened.

It took a couple of days for the guys to come back to finish the job.  They did tear up the side of the yard as well as the front yard. We will have to repair.

The job is finished and we no longer have our beautiful, colorful, orange barrel. It sat in our yard for over a year.

We will now look forward to planting grass seed in the spring.