A Yard in Chaos

So, we had to take down the tree between the garden and the fire pit. Dad asked the neighbor if he wanted the wood and if he would help cut down the tree. A few minutes later, he was half way up the tree with a chain saw.

Here are Ben and Dad watching from below. I'm so glad he didn't fall. That's a long way down.

About 15 minutes later, the tree looked like this....

Here is John, inspecting the hole he is digging for the septic tank.

Nothing like having a huge hole in your back yard.

This truck was supposed to back down to the end of the tennis court and dump a load of sand. There wasn't enough room between the tree and the hole for the guy to get back there. He tried, but he got this far, jumped out of the truck and looked at the distance between the hole and the tire and said "I'm just not that brave" So he dumped it at the side of the house and they scooped it up and drove it back with the backhoe.

Here is the truck that delivered the tank on Friday morning. That tank looks like a concrete vault. I have a video of the tank being dropped in, but I couldn't get it to load. I'll try to get that up eventually.

Here it sits, waiting to be hooked up to the pipe.

This is the first day of excavating the leech field.

Nice big pile of dirt.

We woke up on Monday morning and it had snowed. Talk about bad timing. They drove backhoes in mud and kept on digging.

Here is the backyard shot from the end of the tennis court. Tha's about 2 feet deep.

Here is the backyard Monday morning, before they started moving dirt out of the back. They didn't want to get trucks stuck in the mud, but they had to move the dirt somewhere so they could keep working.

So, they dumped it here for now. Dad and Mom decided they can level out that part of the back. Some of that dirt will be hauled off to our neighbor's yards.

In an effort to save trucking expenses, we had them dump a bunch of dirt in the front. Those ruts are 18 inches in some places.

Here is the leech field being put down. Those are big plastic domes that connect to make a sort of tunnel. There will be 4 rows like that and they will all be covered with sand.

This is how it looks after 2 rows have gone in. Sand Castle anyone?

Here is the view from the railroad tie garden.

I'll try to put up more tomorrow....

Videos

Here is what the garden looks like after all of our hard work.



Here is the tree removal...


Here's Dad trying to get the rope up in the tree so they can guide it as it falls.




This is the backhoe taking a load of debris from the old tank and dumping it in the truck that will haul it away.

The Continuing Saga

Here are a bunch of pictures of what's been going on in the back yard. As you can see, the garden and tennis court and driveway all look very different......More videos to follow... This is all the dirt that came out of the planter boxes (above)

This is the garden after we moved everything off and took out all the ground cover and carpet.

This is the lawn after i'ts been driven over with the tractor

This is the 8 foot hole that we were required to dig in order for the county to come out and issue a permit. I guess they have to look down 8 feet in the soil to see if there is ground water down there (which there isn't...) They will come look at that tomorrow. As for now, we laid fence over it so no one accidentally falls in... As you can see, it's goodbye to the fire pit!

It turns out that it's a bit expensive to haul dirt away, so it looks like we are going to re-landscape the front yard. That's going to be one big berm. We're giving dirt to the neighbors too for some of their projects.

This tree has to be taken out for the leech field to be installed. So, another tree bites the dust.

Unfortunately, the asphalt driveway isn't quite up to supporting the weight of the heavy equipment that's been driving over it. It's just one thing after another around here.

This is the hole that the septic tank came out of today. They are getting it ready for the replacement tank.

More videos

WHAT A DAY!!!

Well, the events of the day have inspired me to start a blog! This morning we woke up to a hole in the back yard. The septic tank colapsed. Basically, we have to replace the whole septic system and we have not water/shower/toilet for the next week. We had to take out the garden and they've been digging a big hole. I will post a series of pictures and videos below so you can see what's going on at the our house today.