Hurting in places we didn't know we had

Wish we had taken before and after pix of this (what good is a blog without lots of before/after pix anyway?!??!). When they cut the trees for the garage footprint we had some debate about what to do with the logs. A friend said he wanted the wood for firewood, so we asked Karl to leave the cut trees for us to dispose of.

They left ALL of it -- logs, branches, twigs, leaves -- in a huge pile of debris the size of a house! We spent the weekend feeding branches as big as 6" diameter into a chipper that ate them as fast as we could shove 'em in. Saved us some cash, but we've realized we may be a bit old for that kind of manual labor. We got it DONE though! There's nothing left but one more load of firewood, and two big logs that we'll split ourselves and maybe keep or give to neighbors.

We'll tackle walking, bending over, grasping things with sore hands in a couple of days, after some much needed rest and ibuprofen.

Phrase-For-The-Day: Monolithic Slab

Karl-the-Builder has been talking about pouring a 'monolithic slab' for the garage foundation. Figured I'd go ahead and Google it to see what the heck he's talking about. We were looking at the flattened dirt pile in the back yard, wondering if there would be footings or foundation walls to keep it all from sliding down the gentle slope...to the steep slope at the edge of the property that drops 80' off a bluff. Found this drawing and zipped it over to Karl, who confirmed this is the plan, which I also found this morning drawn out on the final plans he gave us (DUH!). Since nothing goes under the concrete slab but plumbing pipes, they'll pour the slab and footing/foundation edges in one big glob of concrete, with the sides framed in so there's a thick edge, like the edge of a pizza but rolled underneath and squared off on the top and sides. We'll paint the exposed concrete 'wall' and plant gardenias to cover it up...maybe build a low deck sometime in the future.

Dirt moving begins...oh my!

Lots of misconceptions on my part getting corrected rather rapidly! I was thinking a little 'skidsteer' kind of front end loader was going to scoot around the back yard moving dirt in neat little piles. This monster has been growling around for three days now! Poor dog is freaking out, especially since her side yard fence has been moved to just around the deck, and her flying leaps off the deck stairs are now into a chain link gate. She shivers at thunder...this thing rattles the windows. We'll all be happy when the monster gets back on its big trailer and goes away.