June
2009
Bring On The Diggers!
Ironically it was Mike
who was responsible for the first wave of destruction, as he strimmed over
the entire building site area.
Slow worms live on the site, and the idea was to cut the undergrowth so short
that they would move away to safety further
down the plot, avoiding a massacre when the diggers moved in.....
...which they did the
next day, as in the traditional heavy rain, Andrew LeBrun from the groundworks
company got stuck in.
Within hours, the site
was looking very different, as all the topsoil had been stripped away. This
will be stored safely,
and only be replaced when construction is complete, and we're ready to begin
laying out our garden.
With a second digger
arriving on site, and an improvement in the weather, progress was fast.
Honorary Site Manager
Max surveyed the scene......
...discovering to his
surprise that he wasn't the only dog working on site.
Second digger driver Clive has his own dog, Bandit, on hand to share the driving.
Within a few days an
enormous hole had appeared - almost big enough to accommodate the large basement,
which
will house our rainwater tanks and composting toilet system. Because the subsoil
here contains a lot of sand and gravel,
the walls of the excavations have to be banked (known as a 'batter') to reduce
the chances of them collapsing.
They're also covered in waterproof sheeting so any rain doesn't cause the
banks to slip.
In one corner of the
excavations there wasn't enough room for a batter, so a deep trench had to
be dug very carefully,
shuttering lowered in, and the trench filled with concrete. Here, Andrew LeBrun
is lowering the shuttering, literally
millimetres at a time, while Clive gingerly removes the sub-soil. But luck
wasn't with us this time, and following
earlier torrential rain, the hole was almost deep enough, when without
warning......
......one of the walls
caved in.
So began a delicate
rescue operation, with driver Clive at the controls, and chief ground worker
Lee LeBrun in command.
Slowly the collapsed
trench was cleared out......
..and a race against
time began to fill it with concrete before it could collapse again.
To be continued in the next update....