Big Dig

We had some serious excavation work done yesterday, though in the grand scheme of building a house, it was pretty minor. I just goes to show you that it doesn’t take much to impress a city boy training to be a real man. Last week we tried to dig a trench with a hand operated ditch witch, and it seemed plausible to me, but when we actually stared the operation, it became clear that we were in way over our heads. It was kind of funny, actually.

We had to call in the big guns, so GD contacted a buddy who had a small excavator and we arranged for him to come on Sunday. I actually know the guy, he works over at Bob’s and is really cool. In fact, when he showed up, he looked at me and said, “I didn’t know it was going to be you.” He brought along his machine.

The digging was a piece of cake with this machine, and I’m always impressed with how easily those things tear up the earth. He dug a two foot wide trench about 80 feet long, and then GD and I laid the pipe that will hold the wiring to the barn. All in all, it took about two hours, which when you get down to it, is cheaper than having KB do it for 8 hours of labor using the hand operated machine. Plus, the machine made it much easier, and dug a sufficiently deep trench, which we were failing to do with the hand-op. Oh well, live and learn.

At one point I thought the guy was going to drive the thing into the trench, he was straddling the hold and decided to drive it off. He knew what he was doing and used the scoop to hold up one end. Pretty impressive stuff. Once the job was done, he filled in the ditch and we were in business. Our driveway is a mess, but part of that is more appearance than actual destruction. Plus, we may be on the cusp of fixing our driveway, so hopefully it won’t be a huge factor.

It was a nice day if not a little hot. Once the sun came out, it was tough shoveling and trying to save the plants, but that’s a story for another time.

Until then, thanks for reading.