Online Again!

Last Thursday when the landscapers were here working, one of them managed to cut our cable. We had kind of fuzzy channels on our bedroom TV, but the living room TV, the cable, and the phone were completely out of commission. As an interesting side note, the workers never actually told us they cut the cable, but when we were out in the yard on Saturday afternoon, we found an area of the cable that had been unearthed with all the digging and was suspiciously wrapped with electrical tape. Yep, that'll fix it. Anyway, of course they couldn't send anyone out to fix it until today, so we have been almost totally out of the loop for 4 days. We can both access the internet via our phones, but the signal at our house is pretty poor much of the time, so web-surfing was down to the bare minimum. We didn't realize how much we used the internet until we didn't have it! For example, Phil usually pays bills on Thursday or Friday evening, and all of our bills are paid online now. So Friday on my way to work, I had to drop off the computer and all his "bill-paying stuff" at his office so he could do it there. Inconvenient. Fortunately, the kids went to MeMe and Papaw's this weekend, so they were spared from our grievous lack of good TV.

Phil spent the entire weekend working out in the yard. When they pushed all that mud over to the side, they told us that they would have it removed, for a price, and it would probably be cheaper for us to take over the task of having it taken away. Phil called around a few people who advertised having a dump truck, got a few prices on backhoe rental, and finally found a guy who claimed to have both dump truck AND backhoe, and would do the removal job for a few hundred dollars. We thought this was a pretty good deal, and we tried to hire him. I say tried, because he came out and checked out our situation once and said he could do it. Then it rained a little, and he came back out and said he would NOT do it now, because of the damage his equipment would do to the yard. I laughed to myself a little, thinking, fella-have you SEEN the rest of the yard??? Anyway, what we ended up doing is renting a heavy-duty truck and a dump trailer, used the tractor the workers left here over the weekend, and Phil did it himself. Unfortunately, he worked his butt off all day Saturday and didn't even get half of the pile moved, and made several more trips on Sunday. Still, we have about 1 1/2 dump-truck sized loads of mud remaining in the yard. He had to return the rental equipment today, after which he called the landscape chick and told her he was finished moving dirt and they could take care of the remainder.

I had myself a bit of a breakdown on Saturday afternoon, when I got up and saw how little Phil had been able to accomplish. I think everything just seemed so overwhelming at that point. First, this was only "supposed" to have taken five days to a week, and here we are at a month. Second, we have doubled the cost of the initial bid, and have spent a couple thousand more at this point than we had been planning on spending on the entire project start to finish. And third, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. Maybe I was overtired, maybe I was depressed about spending yet another Saturday night at work, or maybe I really am that upset about this mess, who knows. Alison was very supportive, offering TV services until our cable got fixed, offering her backyard for the excercising of dogs and/or kids, and just in general giving me a much-needed shoulder to cry on. She can't possibly know how much that meant to me. Anyway, here are some pics of the current state-of-the-yard. This is what Phil started with on Saturday morning.

And this is what was left at 4:00 Saturday afternoon:

Yeah, see, still lots of dirt left. He did the absolute best he could with what he had to work with, and he truly did work all day long. Unfortunately, the equipment we had was not the proper equipment for the job. The dirt is still very muddy underneath the top layer, and we didn't have a scoop-type bucket to dig it out. We just had a bulldozer-type bucket to scoop with:

In addition to all the dirt moving, Phil and Johnathan also cut down the one tree we had in our backyard, and they only hit the fence a little. The tree was really a hideous excuse for a tree, and was wrapped with poison ivy vines as thick as my arm. Needless to say, both guys are breaking out in rashes today, because they didn't think you could get poison ivy when the vine is dormant. Turns out, you can!

Honestly, the yard situation is beginning to take the shape we were promised. They have built up the center enough that the water will flow naturally to the main drainage ditch for the most part, and they still have several French drains to install that will direct more flow to the main ditch. If it would only stop raining for a few weeks, they could probably get it finished! Too bad we are having a good, drenching rain on a weekly basis. Here is how it looks now:

(The red clay apparently packs down better and supports they weight of the tractor and other equipment better, so they are able to drive tractors on it and stuff without undoing what they have already done. Whatever.)

So there's an update. Still not finished. No end in sight. Blah.