A big hole

On July 27, big noise for a big hole that was dug, filled up and then recovered with dirt. A second, even larger, hole was started and finished on the 29th. Big, meaningful development – but still no word from Robbie.

The clearing process produced logs, branches and stumps. These needed to go somewhere as the dig required the room to place the fill. Dennis and Stéphane said a large hole would hold all the debris. Stéphane produced this just adjacent to the piles. The earth removed was humus like, quite fine and very dark. Unusual compared to the septic area where the topsoil was not deep and rocks plentiful. Dennis said that we’d better hope that the house site would be more the latter than the former.

With the clearing debris buried, attention was turned over to the dig for the house. Dennis and I started measurements to place and square the hole. The three of us conferred and measured again to correct for cardinal direction, [approx 160 degrees southeast.]. Stéphane proceeded to dig. Very different from the earlier smaller hole for the branches and stumps. This stuff was hard, claylike soil, made harder by the endless rocks of all sizes that made it almost as impenetrable as concrete. He had to change shovels often, from wide scoop to toothed claw.

The digging took two days. The hole was on 3 levels. The first was the basement elevation. The second and third were deeper for the footing on the slope at the rear. Three tiers were needed because the drop to the rear depth for the footing had to be done in 2 foot steps. You might say there is a fourth tier. There is a mound where the garage is, higher than anywhere else. This is because the garage has no basement and merely needs digging for the footings to be below the frost line. This mound can be seen clearly in the fifth photo below.

Piles were created all round the hole, including on top of what had been smoothed out over the debris hole. The trusses were pushed back and large stone were placed in piles for future use as part of a retaining wall and, hopefully, a walkway. We’re very happy to have big stones — a gift — for landscaping, and there are good number of them.