Working With Bare Hands

Moving Forward

Monday, August 4th, the re bar and

plastic were removed. 

This will allow the pad to dry out and

get ready for  re-digging the footings

and re-leveling the grade before the

concrete can come in.  Monday it was

sunny, but all eyes are on the future

forecast now.

On Tuesday, I went out to work on 

removing the dirt now over run by the

runoff forced around the tree trunks from 

the heavy rains. It was recommended

that I get as much of the dirt off the trees

in order to save them.  Since the finish

work (landscaping) will be done at the

end of the project, there is too much

risk just to let them "wait" it out til then. 

So with temps in the 90's

I got at it.

It's required to install a silt fence.  The idea is that it's suppose to keep the dirt work from running off the property, and in this case into the creek bed and then into the lake.  But last week we received 2" of rain on Monday, followed by 3" on Wednesday, followed by more to a total 6 inches in one week!

Footings are drying out.

But the footings for under the porch are still at the same level of water as they were  on Saturday.  We are so anxious to try to pour for the footings that I thought I  should try to drain these  areas, while our builder was making calls to line up a crew to pour the pad early Friday morning.  However,Friday has a 20% of rain.  That doesn't sound high, but this area is humid, so we have been having rain with 10% chance, and a lot of it. 

 So.....

I became creative with "tools" to do the job.

Pail $3.99 from ACE, milk jug and soda can FREE!

What a mess! There are 6 of these.

I only had to bail out 3.  The far 2 at the left are done, just one more to go.  I thought I could speed things up by using my bare hands to dig out the soft silt.  But with my first handful something very energetic and soft went through my fingers and leaped back into the water. Hidden in the mud....

He/She had been there for days.  

I just had to rescue the little amphibian.

A little muddy, but free.

30 minutes later...He/She was ready for a photo op.

Time for a lunch break!  This view makes it so worth all the work!

Because of the rains, the workload is backed up.  So the builder was unable to get a crew to pour this week.  So far the 10 day forecast indicates that next Monday through Saturday the rain % is: 

20%-30%-40%-20%-20%-30%

Let's hope the weatherman doesn't have it right this time, at least in our neighborhood.