Puddles

Work on the excavation was finished on Friday morning, mostly fine tuning a few spots on the walls and floor. It was a tiring week. Though I didn't operate any of the equipment, I was on the site from 8AM through at least 6PM every day.

Before the equipment was removed, a slight slope was graded at the front to deal with runoff from rain that falls before the footings are excavated. Footing excavation has been postponed until closer to the date the footings will be formed so we won't have a footing moat around the site.

I've been able to sleep late a few days in a row since then and don't feel nearly so tired as last week. I've been working on hand grading the two new ponds we built with the spoil from the excavation and burying some drain pipe into and out of the ponds.

We had a great run of good weather but that has come to an end. It began raining last night and we have a half inch so far. This has caused puddles to form on the house site.

The large puddle covers parts of the master bedroom, bathroom and hallway.

This is a view through the kitchen, living room and all the way to the guest bedrooms. It's very muddy but no pools are forming so far.

Seen to the extreme left is the edge of a huge mound of dirt. We hope most of it will be used to backfill behind the walls over the drains and stone that will be placed first. Frankly, I don't know what we'll do with any that is left over. We have already filled more area in front of the site than I had planned and I don't want to cover any more of the original surface.

Almost every inch of the site and everywhere the mostly clay soil has been moved and stockpiled is now sticky mud. As I walked across a section of the path below the house that has been raised with excavated soil, my boots picked up a few inches of mud. On the other side of the raised section where the path again is covered with wood chips, the mud picked up another half inch or so of chips. I was getting taller by the step.

The first pond below the path hasn't taken on any water yet. The larger pond below is beginning to fill with water. When the rain is over for a while, tomorrow or Thursday, I'll post some pictures of the ponds.