Weekend Work 2.24

On Friday, the septic (re)design was completed and submitted to the Health Dept.  The soils out there are amazing and after a day of hard rain, no mud!  We don't anticipate any issues with converting the original pressure system (design 3 years old) to a gravity system as several others have already done so.

 

This weekend was pretty mild in terms of work being done.  Currently at the point where there isn't a whole lot the kiddos can do while I'm working the equipment and with C not feeling well, they all stayed at home.  The dozer guy gave me one more hour Saturday morning and cleaned up about 8 piles of debris I had built up and one last huge old growth stump.

 

I was kinda dragging so I didn't get out there until about 10am (really slacking).  The first item on my agenda was digging out the perc holes since the Health Dept will be coming out to inspect within the the next 1-2 weeks.  We have a Case Backhoe out there to use and John dug the perc holes but Mike (septic design guy) told me to clean them out, make them deeper (5'-6'), and provide a ramp for the inspector to walk down.  Now that I have a excavator out there, I used the 36" bucket to work on the four perc holes.

 

1 of 4 perc holes

 

Over the past two weekends, I used the excavator to pick up alot of boulders (75-200lbs) and setting them aside.  After digging the perc holes, the rest of the day was spent using the Dingo to pick up all the large rocks I had stock piled.  The 'rock climbing wall', as S calls it, is getting pretty large :-)  There are at least thirty 150+lb and over a hundred 50+lb rocks so far which will make for nice landscaping and water features.

 

I shut off early because the wife and I went out to see The Music Man (my first time ever seeing it anywhere).  It was nice to get out and enjoy an evening with C and get a short break from the crum snatchers.

 

On Sunday, I gathered up another serveral more piles of underbrush and left over stuff from the dozer work on Saturday.  Working alone made it a little tougher as I used the miniEx to load up the dump trailer, then drive it over to the 'garbage' section to unload, and then repeat.  After I was done, it all lots purty.

 



 

After everything was cleaned up, I marked out the corners of the house and garage so we could see clearly how the house laid out. 

 



The family came out to see the progress and we talked about the pros/cons of where the house sits.  In the current location, it gives us the best view of the mountain but also puts us on the east side where there are fewer trees from the front.  We decided to leave it where it is but it meant I had take down four more trees (circled below) in the front as it blocked access to the garage.  We are going to have a large circle drive - from the east, ir weaves through the trees and from the west, it is just makes an 'S' curve.  It will look pretty sweet once complete.

While the family was out there, got B and S up on the dozer for a little ride.  B thought he could run along the tracks while I moving but we told him that only happens in the cartoons ... so he was content just hanging off the side.