A Muddy Mess

Lesson 2:  Always check the weather.  So our reckless tree guy did get our culvert to the lot.  We then started our dirt work with two other guys from Jacksonville.  Labor's cheap in the country, you know?   Here's a photo of that:

They pretty much leveled the lot and pulled up the stumps.  Pushed dirt around.  Nothing exciting.  I'm sure this is a very important part of the project.  I found it uninteresting.  They packed in some clay around our culvert, to create a road over our ditch to get in and out of our lot.  Seemed simple enough... until raindrops started to fall.  Turns out our lot, and especially, our ditch, turn into the Mississippi River when it rains.  But that day, it didn't just rain, it poured!  The neighbors said it hadn't rained that hard in a long time.  Well that "Mississippi River," that used to be our ditch, carried off our culvert and all of our fresh dirt downhill into our neighbor's ditch, who thankfully wasn't worried about it, and onto the road.   

We hadn't planned for this in our "budget" so we all pitched in to clean up the mess that day.  Here are a few pictures of the kids helping in the cleanup.  I helped, too.  But, I'll spare anyone from seeing that horrible shot.



Red dirt is heavy being carried uphill

 If we hadn't already made a good impression with the fire, maybe a "gully washer" would do the trick.  Looking back now, I don't know how any of the neighbors talk to us.  So any of the savings on the dirt work were spent on the cleanup.  Sometimes you do get what you pay for.  Have I already said that?  No, really, I don't know that they did anything wrong, other than not checking the weather.  A light rain would have packed down our dirt nicely, they said.



I love this shot.  Note the expert shovelling technique. :)

  I assure you that our build so far has not been totally mishaps.  Our first few weeks of building, however, seemed to be riddled with them.  Not only were these mishaps inconvenient, but the dirt washout, especially, has also been costly.  We have had to pay laborers more than once since then, to bring dirt back uphill, even after all precautions were taken.  I'd make Lesson number 3 "Don't buy a lot on a hillside," but the view is so nice, I can't say that, yet.  Maybe when I start selling my blood plasma, but not yet.