Out of the Trenches

This morning seemed to arrive incredibly early after the work we did yesterday.  We are both really out of shape!  Thankfully, the temperatures were cold this morning but increased as the day progressed, and I was happy to learn that the wind had died down during the night.  Northern Florida had freezing temperatures last night, and we awoke to frost on the grass.

Our task for today was to finish the second part of the trench to bring the drainage point out to the front yard where the rain could drain into the street. We dug from the gate forward, covering about 35 feet.  The good thing was that the ground was sloping down toward the street, so we did not have to keep making the trench increasingly deep.  The bad thing was that we still had one heck of a trench to dig!

The trench for the second part of our drainage
project stretched from our gate to the front
part of the yard.

Once again, we could not have done this job without the use of Steve's transit.   I think you should start charging us rent, Steve.  We have used the transit more than you and Chris have, I think.

We started at 8:00 this morning, shedding layers of jackets and sweatshirts as the temperatures rose.  We were finished by about 12:15 p.m.  At approximately 10:30 this morning, a man in a white truck stopped at the intersection near our house.  The driver stared intently at what we were doing, and then pulled out his phone to make a call.  We figured he was turning us in to the City for not having a permit to dig in our own yard.  Then, perhaps 45 minutes later, an older man in a grey car pulled into our driveway.

"Oh, oh," I said.  "Here we go."  I figured he was from the City and would get out of his car to ask us what we were doing, and did we have an engineer's report and an environmental study report?  And then, of course, there probably would be six permits we needed to do the work.  Surprise!  He paused and looked at what we were doing for a minute, and then he backed out of our driveway and drove down the street. He turned into a driveway at one of the houses further down the street.

The trench job was a bit easier today because we only had one straight pipe to put together, and the soil in the front yard was more sand than actual dirt.  Additionally, we were able to pile the dirt right next to the trench itself, so putting it back did not involve the wheelbarrow and double-shoveling all that dirt.

The pipe was easier to put together since it was
all in a straight line.

Piles of dirt to the right and squares of sod to
the right await their final resting place in and
on the trench.

We had tried to save the sod that we disrupted, so we were able to put some of the grass back which helps the "scar" not look so bad.  If we can keep it watered, we may actually get grass to grow again in that area.

The new drainage system will soon be filled in with
new grass and thus will be invisible from the street.

We hauled the "leftover" dirt to the backyard and put it under the gaps under our fence.  Since our new neighbor behind us and the neighbors to the south of us both have dogs, we want to build up the soil so we have no gaps under the fence.

We finished the whole job and cleaned up everything before our slightly-delayed lunch.  I'm glad we were able to complete this job this morning, because we certainly need this afternoon to rest!