North Texas had some major rains on Friday night. 5-6" or rain overnight. Although not record breaking by any means, it was a powerful Texas-style dump of water. One we need. Because the property I have been working to get has some numerous dry run-off beds, I wanted to see what the rain did to the land.

Drove out and walked the property. The first thing I noticed is that the new survey had been completed. This was great and on schedule, as it was the seller's responsibility to have this done before our closing date. In the numerous steps inh buying land, we are almost done. No real major hitches. Just a non-stop digging through records, copying/scanning/faxing them, and filling out form after form.

Well the water was not to bad. It was less than 12 hours after the downpour stopped. The ground was wet, but the thick overgrown grass and weeds made it easy to walk. The weave of the plans made it possible to get wet in puddles when walking, but not muddy. All of the runoff ditches in the property were flowing with water. Moving at a pretty quick pace.

After inspecting telephone poles in the area, and looking at the soil of the property, I am starting to think that large slab based foundation construction for buildings may not be the best idea. The soil is a thick blackland prarie loam with a higher clay content. Its deep. So when telephone poles are put in, the ground or pole shifts enough for the poles to work themselves out of plum.

So I am thinking in my earthworks phase of this project, all of the future house, cabin, or building sites should probably be best built on artificial hills. Then a pigeon foot roller perhaps should be used to compress the ground some. The elevation gain would help in a gravty based septic system as well.

Smaller concrete slabs could be ok, as they are not too bad to level later on. Ive done that a few times before. I would be concerned about larger slabs (20x20' or bigger). Because of this, I am leaning more towards steel post and frame construction. Perhaps having the posts set on deep concrete pylons with all thread anchors on flanges. This way if the concrete plyon settles some, it could be possible to loosen nuts, shim under the flange, and retighten.

Anyway....

In the middle of the wet field I did see something interesting. The pincers of a live crayfish living in the field. I thought that was pretty interesting because it was at least 100 yards from the nearest runnoff. As its survival and exisitance is based o moisture and water, it makes me optimistic that water for at least irrigation is not too much of an issue.


The boundary line was walked, and finally I was able to see visual markers of there the boundary lines are. It turns out the property goes much deeper away from the road than I expected. The best part is the wooded section and all of the the runoff creek on the east side is within the property line. This is great. I was concerned that we would not get than much of the wooded section. Turns out we would own nearly all of it. Plus, it turns out the farmers cultivating the fields to the far east of the property are actually farming on what is soon to be my land. Not much, but I would guestimate over 8000 square feet in all.



This pretty much made my day. The creek flows after rain with alot of water. Over 200 acres of drainage flows through the East side of the property. I could build many ponds that would be filled. The fill from these ponds used to raise up the elevations of building sites. The thing is... thats alot of earth. I'll save that for a different thread.


Well after walking the property, and getting ready to go, a white truck pulled up. A guy inside asked if we were the new owners. Turns out, he is going to be my neighbor. His house is about 0.5 to 0.75 miles away down the road. His first question was "Are you going to subdivide?" One I said no, he was very friendly

Turns out that the wooded area on my property is prime hunting ground. Less than one mile to the north is a major river valley and old flood plain. This area ia heavily wooded and thus harbors alot of wildlife. Many of the deer in the area will live off the farmers fields for food, then reside in the dense wooded area. Because my wooded section is the only thick spot surrounded by over 500 acres of cultivate feild, turns out that when crops are growing.. all the aminals use my woods as a Summer home.

My future neighbor told me to watch out for poachers because of this.

He has abut 80 acres which he has fenced off and is making all woods. Mostly just for hunting. He informed me that because of the river valley to the north and the farmers fields, that the area swarms with deer, occaisional waves of feral hog, and if you have ponds... geese and foul.

Needless to say... I am pretty please about the whole thing. The property project is finally coming together. The kicker is.. better than expected.

So does this information change your plans about fencing? If you're going to build berms with hedges and fences that are completely impervious to anything but a bulldozer, you will be cutting off the movement of wild game to your property. If they feed from the fields and use your woods for bedding down, it might be best to leave them some sort of access. Either that, or just stock your property with deer and whatever game you want after the barrier is complete.

It also sounds like you'd need to make some provisions for the runoff from the 200 acres that goes through your property, when building the berm/fence. That could be tricky, trying to divert water into certain areas of your property while keeping it secure from people/animals.

I can pretty much tell you, you're going to have a fight coming with that farmer on the east side. He probably doesn't even know he's over his property line. So he will be pissed off to hear he's losing some room for his crops. And if he is aware that he's going over the property line, that may be even worse. It means he doesn't respect property lines. And he may turn out to be a neighbor like I ended up with. Anything you do on that property, he will attempt to thwart you or sabotage it. Especially when you start earthworks on that side of the property for your barrier.

Hopefully, he'll be reasonable and apologetic. I would just try to handle that very delicately, because the chances are that he's going to dislike the news that he's about to lose some maneuvering room and available crop space.

Finding a live crawdad on the property sounds to me like it's a little too wet out there. They live in mud. If he has been living there since well before the rain, then your property may be pretty boggy. Do you think there are more of them living out there regularly?

I'd be out hunting for them, and having a coon-ass style crawfish boil.

I think you could use a concrete slab and then use anchor bolts on the posts. You would just need a roto-hammer drill and anchor bolts with long enough threads so that if you want to put shims in later, because if you get short anchor bolts and then when you go to put the shims in, you could run out of threads.

After walking the property more, I already have some natural barriers in the works. The north boundary already is a small berm. The southern boundary is a drainage ditch.

So when it comes time to earthworks for property boundaries, I think the only major berm I would be building from scratch would run parallel to the road. What I am thinking is actually building the berm on that side about 50-75 yards back away from the road. It would not be a straight line, but a series of S-curves. This way when trees and bushes are added on the curves in a quasi-random fashion if may give the illusion of it just being overgrown and natural.

The 50-75 yards between the berm and the road would then also be planted with some type of hardwood trees with bushes to accent. Once again in a non-linear clump arrangement. I personally dislike geometric landscaping, and beleive that the use of curves and plant clusters is far more aesthetically pleasing.

I actally think the only side I will end up fencing is the eastern side. Where it goes through the woods. Other than that, I think I am going to just focus on earthworks and plants only. I imagine this will not hold out animals so much. But in time would be a good privacy barrier assuming the base shrubs are planted on close enogh centers.

The base shrub I plan to use is Eleagnus. Its a drought and heat resistant shrub that grows in very thickly. It has a year round waxy leaf which turns silver in color during the summer dry spells and green when the ground is wet. It is actually a realitve of teh Russian Sweet Olive. Whats cool is it bears berry like fruit in the Fall or Spring which in Eastern Europe is used to make a preserve. The berries are edible by humans and animals alike.

Once planted, these shrubs take off. In 3 years with marginal soil and minimal rain can grow to 6-8' high and 8-12' in diameter. So if I plant them on 8' zig-zag pattern centers I can get a pretty thick hedge in not much time.

Right now I have close to 500 Eleagnus seeds which I am trying to germinate. My daughter and I harvested the berry/olives and pulled all the seeds. The berries themselves have a red juice/pulp which makes you look like you are bleeding when you pit them. I am sure I could figure out how to make some kind of dye out of them as well.


The Farmer to the east may be a problem. I do not know right now, as I have not met him/them. Really, I have no problems with him cultivating that section of field that overlaps. To be neighborly, I would put in the fence there where it follows the treeline. Not through the edge of the cultivated area. I would rather try to develope a positive relationship with my neighbor. I would be happy to do this if the farmer gave me some assurances that he would help keep trash from flowing down the creek bed after heavy rains. That alone would be a great help.


The crayfish/crawdad was a suprise to me. It was the first one I have seen on the property (Unless it was a giant mud-burrowing scorpion ) The property is on the boggy side. Its farmland. One of the reasons why the entire county is so barren and there are not many houses is because of the soil. Its not like you can easily park a doublewide on it. This is one of the reasons I like it. The land is actually valuable for growing things, not for developments. Yes, someday there may be more people out that way... but the entire County has about 5000 people in it. Of the 250 counties in Texas, it is in the bottom 50 for the least populated. Its primary industry: Agricultural products.

I have a hammer drill and going with redhead concrete anchors are not out of the question.

I was thinking about using all-thread because I have a bunch of 5/8" 10 lengths of it .

I seriously need to plant me some of that Eleagnus. I remember you talking about it before, and it's probably perfect for some of the areas on my property that I want to fill in. Especially with them being drought resistant. Is that something you can buy at pretty much any nursery or garden center?

As for construction methods, I too would think it would be best to use piers with caps that are adjustable. It would be very simple to set a vertical anchor in the top of a pier with a simple nut for adjustability. I would set the framing members of the structure on top of the nut (or build an adapter plate), so the nut can simply be turned to raise or lower that connection. Clay based soils are notorious for upheaval when they get wet, so you may need to provide downward adjustability as well as upward.

When you say "redhead" anchors, what are you referring to? I notice a lot of people use this as a generic term when they're referring to any sort of concrete anchor. But Red Head has a whole lot of different products, many of which I specify for my projects every day. I'm curious which type of anchor you're talking about, or what it is you're thinking of when you mentiond a "redhead" anchor.

To be quite honest, I like Powers brand anchors better. They have a better variety of anchoring systems to choose from. Even Hilti has some good products that I prefer over Red Head. I just think Red Head sells more of their stuff in the 'big box' stores than the other guys, so most people don't have any info on the other choices.

Right now I am still working of procedures to sprout Eleagnus from Seed. My experiment is with approximately 1000 seeds. All have been cleaned and soaked for a few days. Then rinsed and partially dried.

Half I put into a sprouting media. Already I have some sprouts, but not many. I imagine in the next two weeks I will see more.

The other half I mixed into sprouting media then pu t into my freezer for a week dry. I plan on planting these this week. Some seedstock needs this freeze cycle to normalize them. As a way to simulate winter and signal its time for spring.

Once I figure out a method, I can report my findings. I will make a point to set aside some of this seed if you want it. Just keep in mind I am still working on finding the best ways to grow them.


Most North Texas Nurseries will have Eleagnus. Typically it will range $4-6 per one gallon plant. I have bought them at WalMart before for $5 ea. They should be common in your area.

They are also cold tolerant. I shipped some to Boston, MA a few years ago. They do pretty well up there, but do not grow as fast. Whats cool is for landscapers up there its an exotic specialty plant. Meanwhile here in North Texas.. its what is planted on the dividers in the Chili's parking lot



As to the Redhead anchor... I often mention it by that brand name from work. When I I was a pipe fitter/welder and when I made smaller bridge crane systems we used Redghead anchors. More as just brand name recognition than anything else. Not really stuck with them other than I know what I am getting when I buy them.



One other concern about this property... Tornadoes do come through there. Its on teh south edge of Tornado Alley. So I need to figure out some sort of structure which can function as a storm shelter. If can double as an armory..... well that would be cool too. I'll start a different thread for that later on.

This sounds like it could be a good idea. What you are describing sounds like a "jack bolt". I would definatly use a plate on top of the nut to distribute the weight over a larger area and not just on the nut. When I was a millwright, we used alot of long bolts like this in glass plants. The hot end of a glass plant is brick and steel. When you build a hot end and fire it up, as it heats up, it expands. So there are jack bolts all over it. As the furnace expands you have to make alot of adjustments.

I'm pretty sure that anchor bolts are often refered to as red heads is because red head was the first brand that made them popular. Just like "crescent wrench".(Crescent Tool & Horse Shoe Company) Red head probably had a patent on anchor bolts.

With what I was describing, it would HAVE to go all into the nut. Think of the top of a concrete pier, and let's say it's 18" diameter. Out of the top of the concrete pier extends a piece of coil rod. You fabricate a plate or assembly that uses coil nuts that thread down on this piece of coil rod (which is cast into concrete). Your framing for the structure connects to this plate, and all the weight of the structure bears on these coil nuts, which translate the load to the piers.

Just as an example, 1" diameter coil rod has a safe working load of 38,000 pounds (19 tons) in tension and over 25,000 pounds in shear. This is stout stuff. It could more than carry the weight of a structure.

But your idea of a "jack bolt" would work too. Anchor a plate to the top of the pier to act as a bearing point. The structure sits on legs with adjustable feet (kind of like the adjustable feet of a scaffold frame, what we call "screw jacks"). The screw jack base plate is anchored to concrete for stability and all adjustment is done by turning the screw jack. If all homes incorporated this into their design, it would put foundation leveling companies out of business. Any homeowner could level his own foundation once a year, or as needed. And screw jacks don't cost that much. The ones we use here at my company for concrete shoring scaffold will carry 25 kips.

You are right. All the weight would go on the nut. But I'm talking about what's on the nut. It depends what the post is made out of and how much weight is on it. Let say if it's steel thats not very thick then it won't hold up with all the weight just on the nut. A thick plate on top of the nut will support it better. Now if the post has a thick enough base plate incorporated into it, then you wouldn't need to add an additional plate. Also with a jack bolt, if you have enough room on the bottom, you can put two nuts on the bottom(3 nuts total). One to adjust the height and then use the other one to lock it down. A jam nut.

I can say that you're pretty dead-on with the clay ground not being suitable for a sound slab. The house I grew up in back in OK (built in 1953) was build on clay. In fact, the entire block was built over clay back in the '50s. Aparently soil samples weren't adequate back then, or weren't in much consideration. Every house in the area has experienced some serious foundation shifting, and every house in has, at one time or another, needed to have the foundations leveled and other associated repairs.

My current home is build on Blackland prarie clay loam. Nearly the same as out in MiddleOnowhere, except there it gets more moisture. The first large scale project on the property is going to be earthworks. Basically putting in drainage, a few culverts, ponds, roads and then elevated areas for building sites.

That sounds like alot. It is.

One of the pieces of capital equipment I was planning on renting is a large pigeon-foot roller. Specifically for the pond as well as any raised future building sites. Compacting the clay soil prior to building is going to be a requirement.

Right now I am leaning towards smaller buildings with a slab-on-grade foundation. Yes, it would/could provide settling problems down the road. However its what I have now, and I understand the limitations of it.

So, I am leaning towards building smaller slab on grade buildings. Then with dryblock CMU walls and a ferrocement barrel vault style roof. Not large buildings, 16x24' cabins really. The way I have it figured is that if the base soil is well compacted, and I do not skimp on the slab, the building dimensions are small enough where the house could be leveled down the road if shifting of major magnitude occurs.