Two steps forward, one step back

Rocks encountered during excavation of the crawl space.
We are going to use them when we get to the landscaping portion of the project!

One of the rocks is big enough for 3 people.

It's been a slow month.

For the record, we've had the following slow-downs:

1.  Rain.
2.  More dirt on the site than anticipated (the surveyor didn't calculate the volume of dirt we'd be excavating for the crawl space, b/c by report he thought we were building atop a slap, not a crawl space....guess he didn't get a look at the plans that were drawn since November) so we had to find a "home" for 14 truckloads of dirt.  That took -- weeks.  It ended up in Woodstock of all places.  Let us know how it looks, Shelly!
3.  One concrete subcontractor had to be replaced after he indicated he wouldn't be available for at least two weeks (we'd lost our window with him due to the dirt delay above).
4.  General slowness, slight inattentiveness.

This week, after watching Mon/Tues/Wed pass by (sunny, warm days, mind you) with nary a truck or worker on the site, I had to call Cara, our architect, as well as the Cablik folks to find out what was going on.  As Cara described it, we had a "come to Jesus" meeting with all parties involved where we worked out how to move the project along despite issues 1-4 above.

The very next day, it was a virtual Turkish Bazaar of activity on the site.  Bobcats were moving earth around, concrete guys were preparing the retaining wall (more on that later: it'll require its very own blog entry on "working with/around your neighbors"), and geo-thermal drilling was beginning!  See below:

Finally, Benjamin would be perfectly satisfied if what we have now is the finished product.  He loves the dirt, the dirt clods, the dirt piles, the mud on his shoes/pants/socks.

This boy loves to toss dirt clods into the foundation space.