Bridge

At the ranch, there is a mostly dry creek bed that runs east-west the length  of the property.  Corral and stock tanks are on the north side and house and Quonset hut/barn are on the south side.  There are a couple of dry weather no water crossings at different parts of the creek; however, the main crossing, which is convenient to house, barn, corral and is a 'flat crossing' of the creek is a bridge.  It is a good bridge .... and sturdy, I think I remember it is rated to hold 5,000 pounds or there abouts. 

The 'gotcha' for the horses is that it is a cattle guard style bridge, which means instead of a solid floor there are slats with space in between them as the floor which is what keeps the cattle off the bridge.  I don't think keeping cattle off the bridge was the initial purpose of this bridge at the ranch, cause the cattle could just cut through the creek, I think that was just the kind of bridge they had available and what they used. 

Anyway, with the horses - we weren't too comfortable having a bridge they could get their hooves through and get a leg stuck or worse, so the first year we covered the bridge with plywood.  With the plywood in place, Mama and Miss used the bridge rather than cut through the creek, so that was all good until the creek flooded in 2009.  Washed the plywood off the bridge and down the creek.  Put holes in some of the sheets of plywood.  Washed debris up on the bridge.  In summary - created a big ole honkin' mess.

High water in 2009 - bridge after the water receded (a.k.a. big ole honkin' mess).  You can see water off to the right.  To give you an idea of how high the water was/is - Creek bed runs about 4 feet below the bridge.

We patched the plywood covering back together best we could, while realizing that plywood covering was not the answer we needed for long term.  Worked fine in the short run; however, high water and/or extreme weather made crossing the bridge with plywood covering iffy at best.

To add to matters, my girl Miss got her nose into the mess .... what a girl!.  So here we have the bridge in place, the plywood safety covering washed away and my girl decides she needs to check things out.  I find her on the bridge on what remains of the plywood delicately sniffing through debris.  My heart immediately goes to my toes - this is not good - this has the potential to be really bad if she takes the wrong step.  I get Miss off the bridge, sink some T-posts and block both ends of the bridge.  I think, "that will work".  Yeah, NO.  Miss promptly finds her way around the end blockades and up over the sides.  I swear she was thinking that if I'd blocked the bridge off, there must be something really really good on the other side of the blockade and it was her duty to sniff it out and check it out.

I find Miss around the blockade and picking her way through the bridge and my patchwork security work.  I get her off the bridge and add panels to the sides of the bridge.  She is going to give me a heart attack. 

This is what the bridge looks like with end AND side barriers.

Now we've been without easy access to the bridge for a year and I'm kind of missing the convenience of driving over the creek v. driving through the creek.  We spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out how we could make the bridge horse-safe while at the same not not bankrupting our checkbook.

Finally .... a year and a half later a solution presents itself.  Our landlord had the deck replaced and of course, I scavenged all possible lumber from the original deck - no sense filling up the landfill with perfectly usable lumber and as I'm stacking the lumber in the barnyard, I got to wondering whether or not we could use that lumber to cover the slats in the bridge and create a solid horse-safe floor AND one that wouldn't be washed downstream ever time the creek ran high.

Yup - we can do this.  I think it will work. My Dad helped cut the floor boards to size.  I used the remaining plywood for a sub floor to give the planks some extra support.  The planks are cut short enough to slide into place and long enough that both ends tuck neatly under the support I-beams.

In this picture I have about one-quarter of the bridge re-done.  You can see the plywood for sub flooring, and the I-beams in the middle.  Same I-beams are the outside support, so the planks are long enough to have both ends secured and short enough to slide into place - no need for welding or bolting.

 Close up of the support beam and the cattle guard cross bars.

Starting to add plank flooring on both sides.

This is where I ended yesterday evening, with about 6 feet (over both sides of the bridge) left to go, I ran out of 'clean' wood.  Clean being the operative word, I have more planking; however, I need to pull nails and screws so that a) it fits together as well as possible and b) the planks create NO hazard to man, beast or vehicle.

This is what it will look like - planking isn't perfect; however, I think that use and weather will level out some of the warps in the planks.  It is, sturdy sound and fit for foot traffic, hoof traffic and tires.  I'm hoping / planning that it will be relatively easy to maintain and if/as required, replace planks.  Me - I'm glad to have it finished or, at least within sight of being finished; I think it is BEAUTIFUL and can't wait to pull down the barriers, let the horses explore AND ..... get the round pen set up and school (horse school) in session.  Woo hoooo!!!!