back, hoes!

For several weeks now I've been digging a ditch. I work much cheaper
than a backhoe, so it's been dug out with a pick and shovel.

The reason it's taken so long is not its length. Of course the fact
that every time I'd get some more digging done, it would snow and I'd
have to wait a couple days to continue did interfere with the rate of
progress.

I had been given to believe that it needed to be inspected before it
was covered up. It is after all the water-supply line to our (I hope)
new house, and it will be covered over by concrete.

I initially called the plumbing inspector about it when I began the
work. He said it needed to be 7 feet deep. I was somewhat... uh...
well, freaked out isn't too strong a description, when I heard "7
feet". I mean, I'm only 6 feet tall. I don't feature getting down
into a ditch that's deeper than I am tall. When I explained that I
was digging it by hand, the inspector dude relented a bit, said "well,
5 feet then... as deep as you can get it".

Yesterday I decided that it was about as deep as I cared to make it,
roughly 4 feet deep. Since it was hand-dug, it was no wider than
absolutely necessary, and working 4 feet down in a ditch too narrow to
turn around in is a major pain.

So I called the guy up to find out when he was going to come out to
inspect it, hoping that he'd get that done and I could cover it up
before somebody fell into the thing and broke a leg or a neck. Turns
out it didn't really need to be inspected after all. Sheeyit. Well,
I'd have made it this deep anyway.

The water line is about 4 feet down. It has styrofoam insulation
between it and the 4 feet of dirt. On top of that will be an
insulated slab and a heated (damn well better be heated) cabin. From
experience here, I know the buried line won't freeze at around -15F,
no way in hell. If it gets to -100F well we're probably fucked, time
for a winter in the Amazon basin or on Mercury or somewhere a little
warmer. Between -15F and -100F, who knows.

Sonofabitch is covered up though. On to the next thing. It's odd how
these critical paths work out. Next thing I have to do is lay hands
on the actual shower enclosure we'll be using. Then I can dig some
more ditches to put drain lines in just the right places.

Maybe when we're done with this project, I'll be able to rent myself
out as a cheap backhoe. Somehow that doesn't sound appealing.

I wonder about this global warming thing. We seem to be into our
summer weather phase here. I don't mind winter too much even if it's
harsh, as long as it doesn't last very long. Long summers on the
other hand would not be ill received.

Of course as the ice caps melt and the oceans rise, places like
California and Florida will probably have falling real estate values,
and being in one of the higher places around, we'll no doubt
eventually need to prepare to repel boarders.

Now I can wander around in the middle of the night without worrying
that I'll fall into a hole. Of course the water line sticks up to
right about cojone height, so night-wandering is still not without its
hazards. What a woild.

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Subtlety written subtly can be subtly edited away.
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