Making the Grade

Today when I arrived Gary and Jason were hard at work figuring out how to make the grade. They got out the transit and the measuring tape and figured out where they needed to cut the lot down.

The enormous mulch pile in the background didn't help matters.

You see, in order to be able to move the dirt around, stake out the house and eventually dig the basement, they needed to put all that mulch somewhere. So, they piled it up between the soon to be next door neighbors' driveway and the house site:

The mulch pile is so wide that they couldn't cut it back as far as it will eventually go, but it will be enough for now.  They cut right to the edge of the pile.

It sure does look big with the mulch pile on top.  Especially with a person in front of it to give it some perspective.

We will slope down to the wall that will go here eventually, so that the wall isn't so tall.

To stake out the front corners of the house, we had a visit from a real surveyor. Here he is in transit with his transit,

which he soon set up and started consulting the plans.

With the remote control and the tripod, he kinda looks like Ansel Adams, don't you think?

He and his helper got busy setting the corners of the house.

Meanwhile, Gary and Jason were back to studying the plan, now wet from a rain shower.

And Jason's helper struck a pose:

Somebody must have let it slip that the modeling agency was bringing cute kids out again.  That would also explain Jason's fashion choices today -- or would it?

At any rate, we had a huge dirt pile in the back from cutting down the lot.  Just a photo of a mound of dirt is pretty uninspiring, but add some adorable kids, climbing and sliding, and you've got something special:

Don't you think the modelling agency sent some good ones?

I hope the agency provides Tide when they send the models out on shoots like this.

It was definitely a trac hoe bucket full of cuteness.  I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Mulch Ado about Nothing

Saturday brought a surprise.

The man with the mulch chipper brought it on down and got started chipping.

It doesn't look too menacing, does it?

I don't think its looks warrant its name:

 

Even the warning label seemed a little over the top:

I guess this is the part that will get you if you are unfortunate enough to get caught on the conveyor belt:

I sat and watched it chip up trees, trunks and stumps for a while and it was a beast.

Of couse, it had a little help from its incredibly menacing friend, "Pinchy"

Pinchy was hungry.  He would take a stump like this and chomp it into two pieces like this:

He would take trees and crack them in his powerful jaws.

Even when Pinchy took a little nap at lunchtime, he had a tree trunk for a pacifier.

I loved watching the teamwork between Pinchy and the Beast. Pinchy would grab the logs and turn them into matchsticks,

then the Beast would chew them up and spit them out as mulch.

It was hot enough to broil your brain on Saturday, so I took a cue from the dogs I have known.  I sat down in the shade of the idle track hoe.  Nestled down under the cab and between the tractor treads was 10 degrees cooler than standing out in the sun and gave me protection from the occasional tree shard that would kick back from the Beast.

Later in the evening we went down to see the mulch pile.  Here's how it stands up to a 6'4" boy.

Pinchy got a little nervous about our presence.  I think he thought my model would steal some precious mulch, so Pinchy grabbed him:

Luckily, I distracted Pinchy with a nearby log and the model escaped unscathed.

In the end it was mulch  ado about nothing.

Before and After

When Trees Fight Back

Jason really didn't want to take down these last few trees.

The only place to fell them safely was up the hill.  The problem was that it's hard to put the trac hoe down hill of a tree and get enough leverage to push it over.  When the canopy of the tree is mostly on the downhill side, you don't get any help from gravity, either. 

The tree, loosened from its moorings, will want to just fall downhill -- back on the trac hoe.

So, he dug carefully around the rootball and then built a ramp.  It was like an invading army building a ramp for the siege engine.

When the ramp was tall enough for the siege engine to be able to reach high enough upon the trunk to move the tree, they began to push it.

Things got a little tense and scary when the tree decided to retaliate and started coming back on Jason.  He had to shout for his helper to come with the bulldozer and help push.

I retreated to higher ground.  It was the equivalent of peering between my fingers.  I didn't really want to watch.  I was so afraid the tree would get them both.  But I was the only other soul there, and I knew I had to watch to call for help if the tree retaliated and squished them. 

There was a tense moment.

And then another.

And finally the tree was defeated and fell up the hill. 

After that, Jason and his helper decided that the siege engine needed a little help.

A carefully placed notch on the uphill side of the tree followed by a team effort: one man pushing with the trac hoe and one cutting - poised to exit quickly- on the back side of the tree.

In the evening, the log trucks came and took the logs away to Drew's mill. 

They brought two trucks and made two trips. 

Next we will grind the brush pile and root balls into mulch. None of our trees will be taken to the land fill. They will all be returned to the lot, either as flooring, millwork or mulch.

Order of Operations

Jason did a lot of this today.

Sometimes he consulted with his helper,

and sometimes he just sat and studied on it by himself.

I didn't really understand what the problem was.  The trees to come down were clearly marked with an X.  You don't need to study up on that.

Then I saw it:

Drew had put Math problems on some of the trees.

Jason's a pretty smart guy, so I don't think he would have trouble solving the math problems.

I think maybe he was trying to remember the order of operations. 

Which trees go first?

Mutliplication or addition?

Meanwhile, we have gotten the official mark of the construction site.

I know the workers having been inquiring daily when they would have "facilities". I think Gary found an idyllic spot for it, given the parameters he had to work with. It won't stay here long, nestled in the shade of a big oak and tucked in behind abelia and dogwood. It will have a new home a little further from the road once we get the dirt moved around to where it needs to be.