Yesterday we moved my mom and dad’s Camper from its perch beside my garage. We cleared the area out and made our game plan. This morning at 7am Seth arrived with the first of his two trucks. This one pulling the trailer that carries His tractor. The tractor has a large back blade that we will be using a lot over the next couple of days. I drove him out to pick up his other truck. We then drove over and got a pickup load of rock, then it was back to my place. We unloaded his tractor and drove the truck and trailer to the thriving metropolis of Tomah to rent the mini excavator that I would be spending most of my day in. This is a good thing. I have driven by the rental place trying to think of even the thinnest of excuses why I should be able to play…uh…rent a mini excavator. Today would be my day. Thank You Mom and Dad! The problem is we want to keep mom and dad’s camper /RV close to the protection provided by my garage but still in a useable and attractive position. I have no water outlets on that side of the house (I actually have none on the outside of my house but we run a hose…) and the current electrical outlet (pun intended) consists of cord running from my garage along the top of the ground. Water run off from my garage and the new green house I am planning may make things messy for the camper and underneath. The solution: a private RV park! We decided to install a frost-free hydrant and a power box with proper receptacle along side the garage. To ensure proper water displacement we would also run a drain tank and pipe to handle all the water that comes off the garage and will soon (I hope) run off my yet-to-be-built greenhouse. The pictures below will show some of what that entails. We have another day or two of work yet but this is from today. It was amazing how much digging we had to do, and if I do say so myself, I think I did a fine job running the excavator-once I figured out how. Seth is wisely not saying how he thinks I did…
The problem stems from all the sand in our soil. For every foot you dig you can expect a cave in of three to six feet in diameter. To go down 8 foot you are looking at a 24-foot wide hole or more! I don’t think we went that wide but it was certainly wider than that excavator could reach across. I had to keep backing up! When you realize that all of this is so a little one-inch pipe can stick up out of the ground… well it’s probably better not to dwell on it…
After the Frost free Hydrant was installed, we moved on to digging a hole for the water run off tank. We used a double tank to make sure it would handle our needs and then some. We of course surrounded the tank with the rock from Seth’s truck (we also used the rock/gravel around the hydrant) and then dug the ditch to where the up-pipe for my future down spouts. (Say that out loud. There is something silly about that; I don’t know what honestly but it certainly sounds funny!). After the pipe was laid we realized we had for got to purchase the “elbow” that was needed for the “up-pipe”. As Seth went to buy one I decided to use the available time to “wipe-out” our compost pile. I decided that our “burn barrels” and compost pile were too close to the trailer and would need to be moved farther out on our little acre and a half lot. I simply buried the pile in the garden. That’s where compost is supposed to go after all; even if it isn’t exactly all composted…
Seth returned installed the elbow and up-pipe and started to smooth and grade the area with his tractor. Tomorrow they bring the gravel/road base to provide a nice finish to my parent’s personal, private RV Park. You can bet I will have some more pics when it’s all done and installed.
Numbers 6:24!
No comments:
Post a Comment