Our first step for the addition is to flatten the area, but the steps are overlapping here alot. There are other steps that are close to done, but the flattening is all done. This project was ridiculous the whole way through, but we learned that we need a machine.

There were stumps and rocks all along the way and we dug everything out by hand. Every rock was a glacier, hidden below the surface. Every stump had more rock tangled in it’s roots. Only some help from the chainsaw on the stumps. My favorite landscape crew is back at work and are excited to get it done. Digging in the dirt to “help flatten” the area is tons of fun. Plus, it encourages them to help build their own home.

The final stump was the worst and we actually had to chunk it up with a chainsaw and leave pieces. This may cause problems in a few years when it rots, but the addition should be far enough away. I made the man do this job so that I couldn’t break the chainsaw hitting a rock. I would rather him be the one to break it.

I am happy to say, either way, the area around the house is flat, and now to move rocks to finish the foundation. Luckily, we just dug up plenty of rocks in the area, and they can be used to build.

After we did all this work by hand, we realized that it would take us 20 years to just clear paths across the property. We will never get anything done because it will be too difficult to move around the property. The lack of paths around the house is proving to cause us too many problems,so we have re-evaluated and come to an important conclusion:

We bought a mini excavator.

Here is another project with the excavator.