What We Were Doing In August (when I didn't post hardly at all)

 You haven't really heard about it yet, but August was the start of some big changes around this little place here.  Changes had been coming, planned for about a year but in the 'what do you think about. . .' stage for at least a handful of years before that.  The November before (2021), DH and I had decided to bite the bullet, refinance our house (again) for about a 1/2% lower interest rate, but mainly to pull out a whole bunch of equity so that we could fund the 'what if' projects that had been tossed about for years.

Once we had the funds, then came the actual detailed planning.  Like who, exactly, was doing which hard tasks.  Some we could definitely do on our own without killing ourselves.  Others, well, those we had done in the past (like 17-25 years in the past) and had the know-how to do again but weren't so sure our bodies would be on board with it.  And then there was the "oh hell no; we're paying someone else to do that!" group.  Which meant we had to research the someone elses, contact them for bids, decide on which someone else for each task, and get on their schedule for construction season in Michigan.

What we did do:

• trenching for water and electric lines
• laying waterlines 
• installing hydrants & drains
• site prep for DH's shop

First came prepping the site where DH's shop would go.  In his mind, the trenching for water and electric lines didn't need to happen until he had a for sure construction date on the erecting of the pole building that was to be his shop.  Because he wasn't about to dig trenches to my existing barn and then come back months later to dig more trenches from my barn to his shop.

The site, finally chosen (the proposed location has changed several times in the 5 years we've been discussing building DH his own barn/shop), had to be measured out and corners marked.  Then the sod and topsoil needed to be removed.

We also had to cut down a poplar tree (that had grown voluntarily for about the last 12 years) because it was in the northwest corner of the building site. You can see the stump to the left of center in the photo below.

We also had to then bring the entire building site up to grade.  DH started with one 25-yard load of sand. And then another (and another, and another, and. . . ) about $3000 worth of sand later, the site was level. Turns out the spot we chose, that had looked pretty level, actually dropped almost two feet over the 60 feet that building would span.

the first load of sand

Before all that sand could be spread and packed, DH needed to get rid of that stump from the poplar tree.  Needing to also do some excavating where we would be putting in water hydrants, he decided to rent a mini-excavator to tackle both the stump removal and the digging of hydrant locations.

stump

later that evening, no stump!

Being that we live on very heavy clay soil, and that it was August (ie the dryest part of the year), DH decided to use that mini excavator for as many digging related tasks as he could.  So not only did he dig out the 'pit' where the water hydrant inside the barn would go (and need to be wide enough he could get down inside to actually hook the hydrant to the incoming waterline and outgoing drain), he also dug the trench for the incoming and outgoing lines and drains. The trench didn't need to be that wide, but, well, give a man an excavator. . .

Digging inside my barn for where waterline will come under exterior wall

Using the mini-excavator to trench all the way to where waterlines 

and drains will be in my future tack room.

He also needed to dig a large spot near the well head in the front yard so he could tee into the existing waterline that runs from the well into the house.  Quite a bit of that he did with the min-excavator, but the last, most delicate part (don't cut the electric main going into the house!  Or the main water line!) we had to finish out by hand digging.  That was a bitch (excuse the language, but it truly was).  Even four foot down, the soil was rock hard.

Found the old landline for the phone, oops! 

Forgot about that; it's been over a decade since we've used it.

Oh well, if we ever sell this house, and the new owner wants a landline, 

they can deal with it. We'd had to have it run originally when we build the house.

In the photo below, you can see my feet, and in front of them, where I'd finally found the electric main by digging ever so carefully with a trowel.  

That was pretty much an entire weekend of work.  Later that week, DH rented a trencher to dig the rest of the trench with; anywhere it only needed to be wide enough to lay down conduit or a waterline and not wide enough for a person to stand and work in below ground. 

The trench ran about 120' from the well head to my barn, crossing the driveway in two places.  So for the next couple weeks, we parked on the other side of the trench and walked back and forth from the house to our vehicles.  I don't think the mail man, UPS, FedEx or Amazon delivery drivers were very happy about the extra walking.  Sometimes things were just set down by the sawhorses we'd used to block the driveway right where the trench crossed.

Since we were doing all that trenching and running water and electric to the barn and DH's future shop, we decided it was a great time to also get water and electricity out to my garden shed.  So we trenched about 200' in the opposite direction too.  That required disassembling part of the rock wall so that the trencher could get through without having any sharp bends in the waterline.

Unfortunately there is quite a slope from the house down to the garden.  We didn't realize it until afterward, but the trencher didn't work the greatest on slopes.  If the ground was too unlevel, it kind of backfilled as it went.  So there were several areas that required hand digging to actually get down to the below frost level that the waterline needed to be at.  Definitely not DH's favorite part (in the photo below, he started at the pit he'd excavated for the garden hydrant, and then continued to dig out the trench --sometimes having to widen it so he could actually get the shovel in and out--in the backfilled portions.)

But, finally, probably two weeks after we'd started with the whole excavating/trenching endeavor, everything was the right depth, and we had all the materials we needed to lay and connect the new waterlines.  We'd had to order the hydrants if we wanted them all to be the same, and not have to drive all over creation, because not one store had more than two of the ones we needed.  And it was impossible to get ahold of 200' rolls of underground waterline, so we ended up having to (order) many 100' rolls then get all the couplers needed for the extra joins.

A big moment--water not just to the house, but also going out to the barn and to the garden!

Once the waterlines had been laid in the trenches, and connected to the main water line, DH hooked them to the four hydrants we'd put in: one in the garden, one in his shop (or, rather, where the beer brewing/deer processing room would be in his shop), one in my barn and one outside the back of my barn (for filling future pasture water tanks via hoses).

And then came the other momentous occasions in August: the testing of each and every hydrant to make sure water actually came out when you lifted the handle!  And even more importantly, no water sprayed or seeped out of any joins in the lines or where the hydrants attached to the lines.

A successful test!

All the water lines and hydrants passed with flying colors.  Phew!  After that we had to backfill the trenches from 48" deep to 24 inches deep, which is the depth the electric line would go.  Backfilling was much easier and faster than the trenching had been. 

We were ready for the electrician to come in September to hook into the main electric line outside our house and get us power in the barn (which we needed to hire a professional for; the electric line to the garden shed would be a simple underground wire going from the electric panel inside the house and DH ran that himself).

August was busy.  And sweaty.  And exhausting.  And at times, frustrating.  But it was also the start of something big!