Looky, Looky!!!
Bright and early Monday morning, we had rumbling machinery on site. In two days, Mon. and Wed, they have accomplished:
Leveling the hilltop so our floors will be flat.
Repositioning both buildings. House came forward so the builder can get his forklift in behind, and the workshop moved forward due to the drop of the hill. This will save us some $$ on the amount of cement needed for the shop footings. Then both had to be tweaked to make sure we had space to drive between them. Moving the workshop forward required another clump of trees to be removed. There was about 4 trees in a tight cluster right in front of the shop porch. This is the root ball of all the various roots intertwined. I think it looks like an alien spaghetti monster.
Digging trenches for the footings. Under the perimeter walls, garage/interior dividing walls, and all sides of porches. We were impressed with how straight and smooth the trenches are! The excavator sure has some skills! The clay down there is SOLID. I don't expect these buildings will shift or settle much. This is the south trench of the shop. The stair-steps go down the hill to keep the requisite depth into the hill.
This also impressed us. That's the smooth top of a rock that was sheared off by the excavator. I'm thinking it must be a pretty big rock under there, or it would have pulled free instead of getting sheared smooth. It's level with the clay bottom of the trench.
Septic mound and tanks installed. They had this done by the time I arrived after lunch. I was disappointed because I wanted to watch them put the tanks in. It doesn't look like much from this side, but from the downhill side the mound looks HUGE. One more holding tank will go beside the workshop, but not until construction is done, so the builder can drive around the building without worrying about the tank.
Fresh gravel on the rest of the driveway, except the hilltop. It's a REALLY thick layer, and will need rain to help it pack down. Right now it feels like a car would get stuck, or at least leave some ruts. There will be cement trucks driving over it tomorrow, so I guess we'll find out!
In the process of all this, they have made good use of our farm field. They have added a temporary driveway access, piled dirt taken from the trenches, used it to hold the gravel destined for the septic mound, rearranged our tree piles a few times as needed, then finally condensed it all into one big pile for easy burning.
It's silly, but I was greatly amused by this little guy. He was zooming around the site, moving dirt as needed for all the jobs getting done. He reminded me of the Doozers in Fraggle Rock. If you've never watched that show, you should! Jim Henson at his finest.
