Dirt Piles

10-29-09 Earlier this summer we found out that our dry wells had failed for our septic system. We have been saving up for the last couple of months so we could put them in before the ground freezes. In the mean time, I have been doing a maximum of two loads of laundry a day spaced preferably 12 hours apart. If I had to run the dishwasher, I tried to make it only one load of laundry. Anything more than that and we would have gray water leaking into the basement.

The boys were so excited yesterday when the Dump Truck and Backhoe came. We couldn't get coats and shoes on fast enough. Ben watched very carefully. It looks like he is awful close in this picture, but he was out of the way of the workers.

Here they are running a new pipe from the septic out to the old dry wells. They put in a valve so we can switch between the two systems every year.

Once they turned the backhoe off, the boys took off to find their toys and play with the dirt. Ben was fine moving dirt around, but Kyle saw a mountain that needed to be climbed.
Ben couldn't let little brother show him up though.


Here they are installing the new drywells into the holes. Ben can't miss a moment of the action.
The boom truck driver saw Ben's interest and was nice enough to let him to the remote controls to bring the boom back around to the dry well lid.

Kyle was having so much fun that he let Ben give him a hug without crying or pushing him away.


While they were waiting for the stone to be delivered, the workers let the boys get down into the holes and walk around, which they loved.


They also let them get in the cab of the backhoe. Kyle thought it was great to honk the horn.

I love that dirty butt!

The drywells

The boys were so excited about all the activity that they had to eat lunch outside (which was probably a good thing because they were extremely dirty). I finally had to force Kyle in to take a nap. He keep sobbing as I rocked him "vrooms! vrooms!" He only napped for 30 minutes and then was right back outside.

Stone to fill in around the dry wells

And then my battery died.

When they started filling things back in, the boys suddenly lost interest and wanted to go inside. I could hardly get Ben's rubber boots off of him because they were packed with so much sand. I think I poured 2 cups of sand out of each boot. They took baths and then watched from Ben's bedroom as they finished smoothing things out. Then it was off to ride the monster truck through the dirt!

It started raining last night. Here is a picture through Ben's bedroom window of the lake in the backyard.

Unfortunately, the dry wells didn't take care of all our water issues in the basement. With all the rain last night, we have a puddle on the basement floor again. I guess we will have to take some of the dirt that they left out in the woods and try to slope the dirt away from the house a little better. At least I can use water whenever I want now!