Driveway; the big dig (rocks!)

There must be some correlation between big events in the house project and the weather. When Big Things are due to occur, the weather heats up. I guess it could be worse -- the flourlike soil around the old homesite could be soupy mud (oops, did I suggest something to the Weather Gods?). Anyway, last weekend we spent time laying out the driveway, to keep the road away from the big trees as much as possible. In the far back (see below), we also put up some barrier netting where the drain field is -- the drainpipes are pretty close to the surface near the septic tank, so it would be a very bad thing if big equipment drove over them & crushed them. 'Course, lightweight barrier stuff won't keep a multiton earthmover out but you do what you can...

Here I am, the proud owner of a pile of really big rocks. The one I'm on is just one of several multi-tonners. Lisa has been talking about keeping the rocks that come out of the hole they're digging for the basement, but it turns out -- belatedly -- that what she really wanted was rocks that were small enough for us to move with our tractor. These babies are well anchored & will just laugh at our puny front loader. With some help, we can use some for landscaping, but the rest will have to go...somewhere.....else.


And here are a couple of photos showing the hole that will become our basement. We're not sure why they had to dig it so deep -- at the far end, it looks like it is at least 12 feet deep. And muddy on the bottom. I don't have a human in there for scale, but trust me, it's DEEP.

The excavators initially thought they could complete the job in 3 days but after finding so many big rocks they've revised their timeline. Imagine that....