Dirt Work in Farmerville, LA

What is the ground like around Lake D'Arbonne?

The soil in the middle of town is Mahan fine sandy loam on 1 to 5 percent slopes. It is well drained. Run a few miles out and the pattern holds, with Ruston, Bowie, Darley, Smithdale and Bienville. Darley is the biggest soil in Union Parish, a well drained ridge soil that runs gravelly at the surface.

Under the sandy loam the subsoil turns red and clayey. Good fill compacts well in that, which is why a pad here sets up solid. Drop off a ridge into a branch bottom and it changes. Guyton and Iuka ground down there stays wet through most of the winter.

The other side of well drained hill ground is that it scours. A slope moves water fast, and one hard rain cuts a gully out of bare dirt. So grading here is about shape, and we cut and fill so water leaves in a wide sheet. Fill gets keyed into the slope and compacted in lifts, or heavy rain finds the seam.

Camp roads and lake lots in Farmerville

Lake D'Arbonne covers 15,250 acres, and Lake D'Arbonne State Park sits on 655 acres of its shore off Evergreen Road. The median home in Farmerville was built in 1990, newer than the delta towns east of here. The lake pulled that building out this way. The parish 911 office even has a separate fee for boat houses and electronic gates.

Camps and houses off the lake roads usually sit down a long private drive. On this ground those drives wash. Rain runs down the wheel tracks, cuts them out, and the rock disappears into the ruts. Rebuilding one means cutting the base back to shape, putting a crown on it and hauling in fresh rock.

Outside the town limits the places have their own names. Cox Ferry, Canbeal, Holmesville and Moselys Bluff all sit within about six miles of town. Corney Bayou, Mill Creek and Fourmile Creek cut through that ground. The work out there is the same, just further down a gravel road.

Ponds and timberland in Union Parish

Back off the lake, Union Parish is pine country. These soils carry loblolly and shortleaf pine with southern red oak, hickory and sweetgum. Clearing a home site, a fence line or a lane into the back is excavator and skid steer work. Stumps and root balls come out with the thumb, and the ground gets smoothed after.

A pond is the other thing people want on hunting land and back acreage. Hill ground makes that a real question, because sandy soil leaks. An LSU AgCenter publication puts it at about 25 percent clay or silt for a pond to seal. That gets checked at least two feet below where the bottom will be.

So we read the dirt before we start a new pond. Where the top ground is sandy, a clay core in the levee is what holds the water. The same publication warns against oversized watersheds and against putting a pond over a running ditch. Your local NRCS office will look at the site with you at no charge.

Pads, permits and storm work in Farmerville

The FEMA maps show Zone A and Zone AE along the Bayou D'Arbonne system, and Zone X away from it. If a property is in a flood zone, Union Parish wants a Base Flood Elevation Certificate from a licensed surveyor. We build the house pad to the height that certificate or the builder sets. Topsoil comes off, select fill goes in and gets compacted in lifts, and the top is sloped to shed water. Around here the driest stretch runs from late summer into early fall, and that is when fill compacts best.

Farmerville is the Union Parish seat, so building permits in the parish route through town. The parish asks for an address from the 9-1-1 office in the courthouse first. Then Sanitation on Marion Highway, then the Police Jury office on East Water Street with your plans. The list of what needs a permit runs down to anything that will need a new electric meter.

Union Parish takes real weather. The December 2022 EF3 hit the north side of Farmerville and the Lake D'Arbonne shore with winds near 140 mph. In April 2019 a tornado tracked from the Holmesville community across Bayou D'Arbonne Lake. The March 2016 flood dropped 15.69 inches on Farmerville in five days.

Storm cleanup here means downed trees and limbs picked up with the grapple. Damaged sheds and barns come down, the debris is hauled off, and the lot is graded back out. Standing or leaning trees near a house go to a licensed arborist. Anything on a line goes to the power company.