Busted!

I should have known! All was progressing too well and too efficiently, and of course, an OSHA inspector, who happened to be in the neighborhood looking at an entirely different project, decided to take an interest in our little project and with a stroke of a pen, shut us down.

It seems that OSHA took a dim view of what they consider an open pit mine being dug in the backyard of the little house. So the project is now in excavation prison until further notice.

Fortunately, these guys appear to be pretty reasonable and I certainly have no desire to see anyone hurt on this job site (who needs a haunted house, even if it is lightly haunted by the spirit of an ankle sprain) but let's face it, we are not exactly digging a tunnel to Tokyo here either, so we hope that between our excavating contractor and the ever-vigilant and safety minded OSHA inspector, we can make sure all is safe and start digging safely once more.

The other big dig

And the digging goes on. More and more mud and rock are dug up from the back yard to make way for the excavator.



I think the concrete retaining wall is looking a bit nervous, probably because it knows what's going to happen next.



And once the digger has dug, this little guy moves the dirt out of the way.



Pretty impressive operation, really.