The Week That Was (Updated Pics)

The last four days have been busy around the ol' homestead.

The 7.1 'quake on Nov. 30 put the final nails in the coffin of our septic system (for city dwellers, that's a septic tank and drainfield). It caused the steel tank to collapse, which flooded the drainfield. The field, however, was over 90% saturated and couldn't handle that much water all at once.

Long story short: we had to replace the whole thing. On Monday all the equipment showed up, and for the last four days our front yard looked like a construction site.

It required the removal of many trees in what was a heavily-wooded yard.

North view, driveway entrance

West end of the front yard "bowl"

East end of the "bowl"

Panoramic view from north to east, with the resulting distortion. This shot
covers about 250 feet of road frontage.

The first two days, there was so much smoke from the wildfires that we had to leave all the windows closed. Thankfully, by Wednesday the smoke had mostly cleared, so we were able to open the windows on the south side of the house for some fresh air. It was getting a bit stuffy inside.

A neighbor has claimed the piles of logs in the front (to the right of the driveway, above), which shaved a couple hundred dollars off of the job for hiring a truck to haul everything away.

Wednesday afternoon

Wednesday was the busiest day, with the excavator, industrial wood chipper eating trees, front end loader, chain saw, dump truck, and laborers all going full bore until 8 pm.

But the work is done now, and all we have to do is get enough grass seed to cover some 4,000 to 5,000 square feet.

We also need to repave the north end of the circle drive, although that may now have to wait until next spring.

Oh - and how much has all this cost? Trust me, you don't want to know.