Tree Killing and Dirt Work

Our tree clearing day ended up being wet. It started raining first thing in the morning and never quit.

Some trees were cut down and their stumps left in the ground, others were pushed down with the hoe and stumps removed.We took a total of 15.

Dean takes great pride in his ability to push trees over, legend has it that a tree kicked the shit out of him when he was young and he's now getting even.

All of the downed trees are stacked on a landing with plenty of room for the fire wood cutter-splitters people to come harvest it for heat.

Next day our dirt work started by leveling off the site, we then started on the pier and did we got lucky, a 7 foot deep hole around here is a lot to ask! Once we got to depth, Doug leveled out 5" of 1-1/2" rock in the bottom.

The re-rod cage went in next followed by the sono tube with spread footing attached. Back filling with lifts of sand, we leveled and compacted around the tube working to within 4" of final grade.

For the last 4" we used more of the 1-1/2" rock which will make a great base. One other thing to mention that is not shown in the photo, we braided a good 8' copper ground rod and ran it up the side of the tube.

Home sweet home, the scary part was lifting and pulling the observatory over the tube without smashing or crushing the top of the newly installed tube.

There it is, the pier through the floor with ground rod in the front, we then aligned the building north/south.

Our permanent pier is now established.

N 47 44' 22.3"

W 090 35' 42.8"

Tomorrow is clean up day, as well as site preparation for the warm room.