Dirty Work... (Forever Home Update)

This is the view from the edge of the upper meadow. Thanks to the pesky law of gravity, and water inevitably taking the path of least resistance, you can see that both come together here to form the Zen Waterfall in the basement. (Evidently, it's easier to get under the house than around it. Weee!)

The slope is fairly steep, and the valley is right against the house. Do you see the little yellow dump truck in the distance (near the middle of the shot, but way in the back)? To the left of that is a HUGE stump that prevents water from flowing away from the house. So, we've got to do something about that. The white things sticking up are the stakes for the fence, and we kinda-sorta figured it might be best to deal with the drainage issues before we put the fence up rather than try to finagle it around the fence later.

You can see all kinds of things in the photo above: the family pirate, James and Zorak doing a little survey work, Me-Wa playing with the heavy equipment, and in the foreground, my dead salad garden boxy-area-thing. Busy space.

This is a closer shot of Me-Wa grading the back yard to redirect the runoff. Until now, it has always flowed from the upper meadow, straight toward the house. Whatever didn't go into the basement, ran alongside the house until it found a way in, and then, finally, down toward the carport/fire thing, as a last ditch effort. Now, it will hopefully run *around* the house, and down the valley farther from the house, into the creek.

Now, here, you can see that they'd levelled quite a bit. They did more after I took this shot, but it rained last night, and I'm surrounded by an 80-foot-wide swath of mud and mire from every exit except the balcony door. (The mud pit goes all the way around both the front and back of the house.)

The guys found a concrete slab by the basement window, so we used that as the basis for the new grade. It all slopes away from the house, toward the middle of the mud swath, which will one day be green and lush and hopefully not boggy in the least (if we did our math correctly!)

And this is the best that could be done with the time allowed for the rental, and the equipment itself. As you can see, they did get the sidewalk torn up and moved down to the driveway. I haven't braved the mud swath to get to the barn yet, but they also put a good-sized dent in the garden by the barn.

This is basically our final grade. Again, they did a bit more after I retired the camera (the gutter drain is gone now and that corner's been built up and contoured, for example). From what I understand, we need a tractor and a Harley Rake, or a bobcat and a box blade to do the finish work at this point. (For the record: that last sentence is entirely Greek to me, and since I'm spooling up on carpools, schedules, and meals-to-go, that's Zorak's ball to run with this week. Once he fills me in on what we're doing and why, I'll be sure to let ya know.)

The kids had a BLAST this weekend, between playing with Me-Tae, playing in the dirt, helping Dad and Me-Wa... it was just good, good, good.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy