Wednesday Morning, 7AM

Poor John has to put up with a lot:

Not only do the machines wake him up in the morning, they operate just outside the window by his desk. He's been a real trooper.

When I got back home, I found most of the old foundations under the back of the house were completely gone. The bobcat was stranded in a big hole:

Scott and his team were just packing up for the night. He explained to me that there is so much water in the soil that they have to dig holes larger than they originally expected, just so that the slump at the edges wouldn't impede their work. That also meant building a pretty significant retaining wall for the side of the hole that was closest to our neighbors' house:

They had hoped to be completely done removing the old foundations over the weekend. The amount water in the ground has put the kibosh on that idea, though, meaning that the machines will be at our house again tomorrow and perhaps Friday, too.

"I don't even want to think about money," Scott told me. However, thinking about money is exactly what we need to do -- sooner than later. It was against Scott's own best judgment that he started this job during the rainy months; we're now dealing with the consequences of that decision. I'll be very upset if we end up shouldering the entire burden, financially speaking.

posted by noel on 02/23/05