The Plumbing Gods Are Annoyed
I have trucks and public servants digging up the front yard. It was a damp spot yesterday, but this morning it was a mini-geyser. My guess is the sugarberry out front got its roots around the water main and snapped it.
Cast iron has little chance when it tries to hold off the attack of a tree root. It is a very slow process, but season after season the pressure increases until the pipe surrenders.
With any luck they will cut down the sugarberry and haul it away. They are an invasive species that crowd out native trees and break in tropical storm force winds.
2 comments
Kinda like the blue gum eucalyptus here in the West, then. The morons who imported those things from Australia had no idea WTF they were doing…
.-= last blog ..So why don’t I comment on your blog? =-.
Actually the railroads imported them because they make great, insect resistant, railroad ties when grown in the soil of Australia. In the soil of California they are twisted and brittle, not straight and resilient, and tend to shatter after about six months. They are, however, excellent fuel for wildfires with their oily sap and inflammable vapors during dry spells.
It was always an exciting trip driving through Rancho Santa Fe waiting for a eucalyptus limb to drop on your car.
The sugarberry is a fast growing shade tree that provides food for birds in the form of its berries, but it doesn’t seal damage to the bark, and pruning one will often result in the trunk rotting from the inside out, ready to snap in the wind.