A couple of trenches... on the rocks, please

It seems that Monday was a rather frustrating day. A day of a lot of measuring, and not nearly enough time on the big toys. Sam, Nathan, and Dale worked on figuring out, and marking out, exactly where the new house parts should go. This involved a lot of measuring...



... a lot of holding of tape measures and triangulating distances...



... a lot of checking and double checking...









...and not nearly enough playing on Big Toys! There was a little bit of that, though. Big Toys are fun for other things besides breaking up and moving heavy concrete. Digging big holes, for instance. Sam started a very deep hole at the back of the backyard where we plan on planting an orange tree. We found out why our tomatoes hadn't done so well, in previous years: after just 1/2 a foot of topsoil, that part of our yard (indeed, most of our yard) is pure, hard, unbreakable sand-stone. That made for some slow-going, when Sam was digging this:



Nathan continued making that hole deeper- enjoying the power of the Big Toy:



Sam is also digging a deep trench along the length of what will be the new patio to ensure that our 'new' house doesn't have the flooding problem that our current house does. Here is Sioux checking out trench, Part I:



As a result of all this digging, Michelle has a LOT of dirt:



Over the past couple of days, there has been more measuring (not terribly exciting to photograph, that), and more digging. The drainage trench has gotten longer, and deeper. Here is trench, Part II:





So those are the trenches, so far. I promised you trenches on the rocks, though. Here they are.



Enjoy!