More Earthwork

Ruidoso Down receive another 0.5" of rain yesterday, followed by our first hard frost. Today it is sunny and I am currently waiting for the sun to melt the ice from my tractor. I put an anti-gel agent in the latest batch of biodiesel. Let's hope it works! (For more on Biodiesel gel point see http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_winter.html)

Though the soil in the work site is still too wet to use in the earth block machine, it is soft enough to speed up the earthwork and I moved many tons of soil on Monday, Tuesday, and yesterday.


I took a few pictures of the building site and stitched them into a panorama. As you can see over by the crappy red building, the soil level is down over a foot from last week. To the far right of the photo, is an area that will have to be built up to the final sub grade level. Before the rain yesterday, I managed to grade and pack one "lift" of soil. The area that needs to be filled will be made of seven or so such "lifts" of about 2"-4" soil.

I am hopeful that by next week's post, I will have brought the grade to the desired level and will be laying out and hopefully digging the foundation trench. (This is my hook to keep you coming back.)