Officially Trenchlike

Today I was back to work on the trench. I made pretty good progress, even uncovered the old water line (just a few inches to the side of the new one, and just barely visible as a rise in the dirt right under the Stupid Pipe in the photo below). And things improved when Noel flexed his flex time and came out to work with me in the afternoon.

We spent some time checking my measurements, some of which were right on and some of which were way off. Noel suggested we run the pink string down the centerline of the wall to be sure that we had enough width on the right sides of the trench all the way down, and that worked pretty well.

The only part left to dig out is in the deepest part of the trench, where I didn't have quite enough width. We didn't do that today because it was getting dark, but it should be a quick dig tomorrow. Then it's time to order gravel and get materials to do the footings. Good thing, because I'm running out of room to put the spoils.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow afternoon -- the forecast says a big winter storm is coming our way -- but the previous winter storm didn't cause any damage to the trench so I'm not feeling as wary about carrying on in adverse weather as I was. So with any luck we will have gravel laid out on Friday and can spend the weekend tying rebar in the driving rain. Woohoo!

posted by ayse on 02/23/11