We chose the Peekskill plan by Don Gardner.
It's so exciting to watch them dig in the dirt! Clint and Kyle showed up around 11 and took a preliminary look around the site, marking their lines clearly and talking about what needed to be done. Of course, Tommy instantly joined in, trying to see how he could help.
Finally they were ready to start moving the machines, so Clint offered to take Tommy on the first ride around. Nikki was just a little bit jealous and walked away pouting.
However, she quickly got over her disappointment about not getting to ride in the dozer once she discovered a rock to play with. Silly girl.
Tommy went with Clint to scrape the top soil off the house site so it could be saved and re-used once we are done building.
Becky also entertained herself by finding her favorite "Puzzle" - a rock that I found earlier this summer that was split into pieces that I put back together. She loves coming to take it apart and put it back together.
Finally it was time to start the actual breaking of ground, so Tommy hopped off the dozer and we all moved out of the way to watch them dig the first hole.
On your mark...
Get set...
Dig!
Kyle skirted the chalk lines so they could back-fill behind our poured cement walls, so didn't stay exactly within the lines! A few minutes later, he had a nice sized hole dug for us.
As he kept digging, he eventually hit a large rock. Tommy was sure they wouldn't be able to get it dug out because it was so big.
He kept watching and suddenly, the rock popped out of it's hole!
Kyle used the "thumb" part of the machine to hold the rock and lift it out of the ground and toss it out of the way.
Once the hole was deep enough to get our basement walls to a poured height of 10 feet (I believe that's 2 feet above ground too), Clint hopped back into the dozer to push dirt towards the front end loader.
We went inside for lunch at this point and came back out a few hours later to see what had been accomplished. The hole in the ground was much larger, and Clint had begun laying out the road that will take us to our house.
View of the road from the other side.
Becky's legs had started hurting again (growing pains), so she stayed inside. Tommy and Nikki had fun climbing on the dirt pile, trying to see a better view of the hole that had been dug.
We were impressed with how large that hole had become! The red dirt below is clay and great for digging footers into because it's so hard.
The soil closest to the white chalk line here is pretty wet and spongy, so Clint told us the footers will have to be deeper here. We may also need to put a french drain on the inside of the footers as well to keep the foundation from sweating. I'm hoping it's not that bad, but we'll see!
Buddy even ran over to check things out, and keep everyone in line. Good puppy!
When Clint and Kyle were almost finished for the day, Clint finally took Nikki on the dozer for a ride.
She hung on tight and loved every minute of it.
In fact, she loved it so much, she pretended to fall asleep so she could stay longer in the dozer.
Apparently, that's not the first time Clint's had a kid pretend to fall asleep, because she was soon "awake" and giggling again.
It was finally time for the boys to head home for the day, so Tommy helped Kyle pack up for the day.
Next week is supposed to have some good weather, so we should see them again Monday.
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