DIRT!!!

So, the kids are gonna be in North Carolina for a few weeks. Once we ruled out ‘romantic vacation to Rome’, and ‘buy a sailboat and circumnavigate the world’, well, what was left to do but go in that big room on Ouachita and dig dirt? Especially since we were experiencing one of the driest hottest summers on record! Who could resist? Year 9 of marriage almost always calls for drastic measure. The thought went like this, “I mean, how LONG could it really take to just dig out six inches of dirt? I mean, we could go rent a bunch of machinery, but really, if we just DID it, how long would it REALLY take?” Well, the answer is in. And it was 8 days. With help.

We had been going at it about, well about a few hours, and we were feeling the heavy weight of the beginning of a project, when our friend James Katowich dropped by. He took one look at our project, and decided that he would come back and help us out. I’m sure he felt sorry for us, I’m sure he could feel the crushing weight of the tons of dirt we would be removing, and I think his inner protestant thought the hard work would do him good. Sure enough, the next day he showed up, and spent his hours digging, hauling wheelbarrows of the clay/rock/dirt combo that is otherwise known as THE GROUND, and we all flushed out our sweat glands. Afterwards, we restored our bodies with BBQ from Mickey’s.

I was hoping the generous mood of James would be contagious, and sure enough, when James was out on the street dumping a wheelbarrow full of EARTH onto the trailer, he came across Hillbilly, who was a man on the lookout for some work. Hillbilly came in the shop, and asked Zac what was up, and Zac says, “low pay, bad hours, hard work, be here at 6 A.M. if you really mean it”. I guess he figured that would take care of him, but what do you know, next morning when we pulled up at 6:11 A.M. (we were the late ones) he was there waiting for us. Ready to DIG DIRT!

The morning was kind of quiet, all of us sniffing each other out, trying to figure out if this was all gonna be ok or not, and we hauled and dug and maddocked that damn hard ground (maddocked? is that a word?) and worked like a bunch of bees in a hive. Sweating, sweating, and sweating. Trying not to fall over, me hoping Hillbilly was of sound body, because this was some crazy work….

Slowly but surely the dirt came out. We had borrowed a leveling device from Al Childs, who so generously loaned out the tool, and it saved us from digging too deep. Luckily, Zac just happens to be the kind of genius who knows how to use every kind of tool that was ever invented, because I would have just eyeballed the whole thing.

SO we dug, and we dug, and a few folks came by to help, Joe Power came over and dug a bit, dug out  the giant rock that was under the back bathroom….One wheelbarrow at a time. How do you write descriptive and interesting commentary about digging out dirt? I guess you don’t. How about some more pictures:

 

 

 

Jamie came by and dug for an afternoon. I think Hillbilly thought our friends were truly crazy. He couldn’t imagine a world where people do this kind of thing voluntarily. Maybe no one came back twice, but he kept coming back-maybe it was the money. Hmmmmm.

We dug about 8 days worth, and took about 10 loads of dirt to our neighbor across the street, who is trying to build a mountain in his back yard. Extending his land, whatever it is you call it when you continue to dump dirt down a hill side till it becomes more flat surface for you to put your junk on. Arkansas Landscaping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It just seemed so clean as we dug out the dirt. As if we were purging a layer of mess that needed to be moved. And to be perfectly honest, I was just glad we never found a body.

 

 

 

We had to dig in footers for the 8 supports we would be putting in with concrete. And also a footer for the front area. Eventually, we would remodel the front window and restore the old storefront to its former glory. A recessed entry, with display windows on either side. That is in Phase 19 of this job, but it is in there.

 

 

 

 

Finally, the day came. We were ready to move on from DIRT. DIRT DIRT DIRT. That was all we were saying anymore. That was what I saw at night when I closed my eyes. Suddenly, parenting two kids seemed like a cinch. Where were the kids? Was it time to leave yet????