I Came to Help. The Granite Said No.

The weekend after our trip to Oregon, we were right back at the property. We wanted to get the drainfield finished, and we had an excavator again, so the plan was pretty simple: Greg would run the excavator and I would do the shoveling and raking.

Simple plan.

Of course, because this is our property and apparently nothing can ever be easy, the last 20 feet were the worst.

There was SO much granite.

Greg spent a lot of time switching back and forth between the bucket and the hydraulic hammer attachment. He’d break up the granite with the hammer, switch the bucket back on, scoop out the rocks, then switch back to the hammer and do it all over again.

And there were some BIG rocks.

Unfortunately, that also meant there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. Normally I’m pretty happy to shovel, rake and move dirt around, but I couldn’t exactly lift or move some of these rocks. I did what I could, but there were definitely stretches where I was more in the way than I was helping.

So I wandered around and took a few pictures.

I listened to my audiobook.

I played some Solitaire on my phone.

Basically, I became the official supervisor.

I really did wish I could have helped more. It’s hard to stand around watching someone work when you know they’re working their butt off, especially when you came prepared to help. But sometimes there’s just not much you can do. It is what it is.

Eventually, after a whole lot of hammering, scooping, switching attachments and moving granite, we finally got the drainfield finished!

That felt like a pretty big accomplishment.

Once we were done, I headed home while Greg stayed at the property. He had a few more things he wanted to get done, so he spent Sunday working some more before heading home.

Another weekend at the property, another project checked off the list.

And another reminder that apparently the dirt gets to have a say in how long everything takes.