Ayers Rock in Virginia

I stepped outside just before 7:30 to help Phil roll the trampoline out of its place. When the men dropped off the excavator yesterday, they mentioned a "heap big dirt," and figured they might need the site of the trampoline. Phil was going to dismantle it, but I had hopes we could just roll it back into place. And rolling is faster.

The former trampoline site was bare. A small pile of debris remained well out of reach of any dirt. We were ready to go.

The excavator, too, was ready, sitting, regal in the morning light, dominating the landscape.

I think the contractor had a flat this morning, so he arrived later than he'd expected. But right as Joe woke up, he made the first cut. I picked up my son and we watched the cut, together.

The contractor first scraped the site of most of the topsoil.

It made a good sized mound of pretty good looking brownish dirt.

Then he cut down a corner. Phil hung around with his surveying equipment, so they could shoot the corner to make sure it was excavated as deep as it should be.

After looking at the depth, Phil realized it wasn't as deep as we'd like: we needed two more feet to get a crawl space under the Underground Storage.

Two feet below the lowest part of the grade, though, made quite a hole.

The dirt kept piling up.

I looked at the pile of debris from the morning, and realized it needed to move. And it absolutely did. Though little dirt actually touched that spot (the contractors diligently worked around the tulip poplar right there), the excavator needed that site.

By lunch time, the trampoline site had dirt touching it.

Those piles look small, until you realize there are piles behind piles. That's a lot of dirt.

By dinner, the trampoline site was obliterated under a fifteen foot mountain of dirt. (I'm standing inside the RV to take the photo: the dirt is right there!)

From a little distance, I think it looks much like Ayers Rock in Australia: large and red.

Sometime in the midafternoon, I had to take a break. Sensory overload, perhaps, or a bit of grief (if there's this much dirt extracted, how will we ever replace it even somewhat so it looks okay?). When each scoop takes out a couple of wheelbarrows, and the scoop runs all day, that's a lot of disturbance. A daunting disturbance, perhaps.

And so close to our living space. I round the corner of the trailer and there's a red slap in the face, ten feet away, blocking all view of nursery or field. I know that at some point my brain will cease to shout at this change, but for now, it shocks me every time.

Even the downhill slope has a quantity of dirt. Perhaps terracing is in our future.

The boys love this mountain outside the RV door. They climbed the mountain, carved seats for themselves, jumped and danced until they were red from hair to toe. (It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it: what a powdery ick all over!)

As the upside of the hole grew deeper, and the cut grew more square all the way around, the boys and I began to wonder how the excavator would get out of the hole. We've read Mike Mulligan of course, but unlike Mary Ann, we have no desire to keep such an enormous tractor in our basement as a future furnace.

How did the excavator exit? When he had a small amount of dirt yet to extract, he pushed it over to the edge and made a little ramp. Up he went, then scooped out the ramp. Done!

Well, not DONE done. Tomorrow he'll come with a smaller excavator to tidy up. When he and Phil shot the site, there was, on average, about nine more inches of excavating to go. Where will this dirt go? I'm not sure.