A Long, Dirty Day's Work

Sam and his friend got up at 3 am and were on the road by 4 am, woke us up at 6 am. By 6:30 Sam and I were at the rental equipment place and by 7:15 we were unloading the equipment into the back yard. Jeff, Brian and William had already taken down the fences.

One cement cutter and Sam's friend Brian.

I couldn't stand to be there when they cut down my apple tree, so no photos. Here's a bit later, cutting it apart and clearing the alley.

William leaning on his shovel - working hard or barely working?

He actually worked very hard without complaint for twelve hours.

Sam behind the wheel....

...of this big ol' creature.

William and the head of the dragon.

Another photo of William and dragon - I liked the cool shadow between them.

Rub a dub dub, three men in a .... well, a ditch. This is about the time they discovered that the guy from the water company, that had decorated the edge of my fence with a cute little line of white flags designating the location of the water line, was full of crap. We'd been digging very carefully to avoid hitting the gas line, which was within a couple feet of the sewer line we were digging up. The water line was supposed to be about five feet away on the other side. Turns out the water line.... wasn't. It was closer to the sewer line than the gas line was. The little line of flags would have had to have traveled up the tree diagonally and across the roofline to be MORE wrong. So, unexpectedly, we got to replace two thirds of water line as well.


This photo only shows about half of the length. The ditch was about eighty feet from end to end. It started out at about three and a half feet deep at one end and finished out by the alley at almost five feet deep!

TWELVE HOURS LATER we called it a day. And went out for Mexican food.

All filled back in. Well, almost. There's more to do. Here's a photo I took today. Down at the far end, in dark shadow so it's hard to see, there's a lot more dirt to replace in the ditch. And there's "exra" dirt, as well as a pile of sand to deal with. A pile of apple tree to cut and stack. A dumpster to finish filling. Fence posts to reset and two fences to place. A ditch to ... well, I'll get to that in a second. Once that's all done then I can start figuring out how to put it all back together.


So, the ditch. I have cement to reset. This is about half of it, there are two more piles behind me. I had them break it into smaller "stone" pieces for me. I'll going to refill it more as a stone courtyard then as a slab. I hope to break up some of the other parts as well, some of it is already broken up. I don't think it will ever look professional, but if I'm lucky it will look funky - in the good "hippy" definition sort of way - not funky in the "dead skunk smell" use of the word. I have to get the rest of the dirt back in the ditch and give it some time to settle before I have to worry about whatever I'll do next.


We didn't move Green Mary but she seemed calm throughout the event. She survived, a bit dusty, but with her smile intact. She'll get a showering off a bit later.

Today I woke to perhaps the longest string of variations on the "f" word that I've ever heard, coming from Hubby's lips. We'd had a leak in the kitchen sink, small problem compared to the backyard. Hubby thought he'd surprise me by fixing it before he went to work today. Instead, it went from minor to major. We called a plumber who amazed us by being available this afternoon.

Long story short, I bought a brand new and much better quality (not to mention pretty and modern) faucet and had it installed. The plumber also helped check all the other faucets and hook ups in the house and helped clear a clog in one of the bathroom valves.

Expensive but I'm so happy to have plumbing, working plumbing, KNOCK ON WOOD, that it's all worth it. It's hard to explain how happy I am at the thought of washing, scrubbing, doing unlimited loads of laundry, and even flushing the toilet as often as I want! And showers! Long, hot, and did I mention LONNNNNGGGGGG showers - Nirvana!