… though hopefully not in any dramatic way.<\/p>\n
The Wandering Monk returns today for a short but unpleasant project — removing the last four inches or so of soil from the 12 x 24 area between the north house wall and the gorgeous retaining wall<\/a> we built a year ago.<\/p>\n The mega earth-moving<\/a> was all done last year. It enabled us to build the wall and begin the new drainage system. No longer is water freely running down hills on two sides of the house and pooling underneath.<\/p>\n But the poor old guy with the John Deere didn’t get the last few inches right. Understandable. He really was a poor old guy. He did the job on the cheap to help pay his and his wife’s endless medical bills, and by the end of the year he was (unsurprisingly) dead. (Heaven save us all from having to do such hard labor in the last months of our lives just to keep from going under.)<\/p>\n This year, another hungry guy with earth-moving equipment quoted me a good rate for removing\/leveling those last few inches and more. But when the time came, he was nowhere to be found. So it’ll be pick-and-shovel work for the Monk and me (but mostly the Monk).<\/p>\n In a way, this is fine. I was worried about an equipment operator of unknown skill working between the newly restored house and that hard-won block wall and was almost relieved when he flaked out. And four or five inches? That doesn’t sound like much. But it’s nearly all clay. Nasty stuff. The Monk has been talking about clever ways to break it up and haul it out — a kind of makeshift harrow, followed by a makeshift skid to drag the dirt away. I doubt the homemade harrow will work, but the skid (half of the former bedroom wall<\/a>, which the Monk decided not to cut up yet) … maybe.<\/p>\n Once this is done, we can lay down black plastic, cover it with gravel, and ensure that, on the north side of the house, at least, nothing will ever drain toward the structure again. Final drainage work on the east and west sides will happen next year. But the west side isn’t bad and the east is nowhere as critical a problem as the north.<\/p>\n In any case, it’s going to be hard, sweaty labor. At least it’s a hair cooler today than the 90+ degrees we’ve having. But the sky is red with wildfire smoke and the day feels eerie and ominous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … though hopefully not in any dramatic way. The Wandering Monk returns today for a short but unpleasant project — removing the last four inches or so of soil from the 12 x 24 area between the north house wall and the gorgeous retaining wall we built a year ago. The mega earth-moving was all done last year. It enabled us to build the wall and begin the new drainage system. No longer is water freely running down hills on two sides of the house and pooling underneath. But the poor old guy with the John Deere didn’t get the…<\/p>\n