Last week started off with anticipation. With the deck down, all we needed to prepare for the trenching was to dig up the water and power lines running between the trailer and the pump house so that we wouldn't put ourselves in a pickle by cutting them as we trenched.
Although the ground was a little hard, I found them easily enough without damaging them,
In my digging, I even found an old, clay marble. Sometimes, I think I should pull out the metal detector to see if I can find any lost treasures on this property. But the truth is, there are so many old nails and broken bits of farm equipment that the place would be peppered with holes with only a slim chance of finding anything of real value. So I figure it is a lot more fun to be surprised by the random, nearly worthless things I find while digging in the garden than to face a lot of disappointment in an intentional search for something of great value that may or may not exist.
Wednesday, my mother left for high school reunion in Montana, so it was my job for the next two days to sleep over at their house and make sure my dad didn't get into any trouble while she was gone. I am not used to staying up as late as my folks do, so by the time the 4th hit, I was a bit tired.
That didn't stop us from having some fun, though. The kids went crazy and shot off fireworks all evening, running through the smoke, trying to catch parachutes, and acting generally excited and wound up. We went to watch the little fireworks show that Chapel Hill puts on, then came back to my folk for even more fireworks.
The next morning, Chris rented the trencher.
Two feet in, we hit a big rock that we had to dig out. From there, thing went a little easier, but the 36" trencher was leaving us with only a 32" deep trench. It seemed it might have been digging the 36", but leaving a lot of loose soil in the bottom of the trench. Trying to get all that loose soil out of the trench by hand would take forever.
At some point during the day, I spotted a grub in the excavated dirt. As is my custom, I snatched it up as a treat for some lucky chicken. Almost as soon as my fingers closed around it, I felt a hard pinch which caused me to drop the grub back to the ground. That made me mad. No grub that pinches me is going to get away with it. I found my gloves and picked the sucker back up and fed it to one of our favorite chickens. I don't know what kind of beetle that grub was going to turn into, but I hope there aren't many of them around.
Near the end of the day, we hit a rocky patch, and it took quite a while for the trencher to even dig two feet down. Eventually, we called it quits, knowing that if the electrical company wouldn't let the shallower hole slide, we'd have to rent a bigger trencher. Monday morning, I called the electrical company, and sure enough, we need to rent the bigger trencher. I also found out we needed another permit for the HVAC, and as we had some more questions I decided to have the inspector out for a consult.
Tuesday morning he showed up. Turns out, I terminated the main panel wrong, and should have separated the neutral and ground wires. Since we had a disconnect panel outside, that technically makes that main panel a sub-panel. The inspector did compliment me on my work, though, saying it looked nice. Well, it won't look quite as nice when I'm through fixing it...
All these setbacks. To boot, I have been suffering from a stomach bug for the past few days. I spent yesterday afternoon on my bed, willing away chills and headache, praying each trip to the bathroom means I'm nearer the end of my misery.
And since I need to end on a positive note for my own sanity, here is a picture of one of the two chicks that came from Lizzy's (may she rest in peace) eggs. To our delight, they are growing a tuft of black feathers out of the tops of their heads. Reminds me of a miniature Mr. T.
The little joys of life help pull us through the harder parts.
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