After meditating on the potential
miseries of being sick in a travel trailer, we scheduled our flu
shots. DH promptly fell ill, and I was close behind. So the shots are
still unadministered, but we are back on our feet, if not bright-eyed
and sparkling.
The timing was unfortunate, as getting the septic system in needs to happen with great promptness, a fact that DH fretted about even as he lay racked with fever, headache and coughing. Fortunately for us, if not for the general state of the climate, we were experiencing an unseasonal period of warm, dry weather, and it was painful to watch the days slip away without action.
The gods chose to smile upon us, however, and graciously extended the weather break, so as soon as he was on his feet, DH began frantically measuring and calculating, and calling equipment rental places.
He explained, first to our local place, that he needed a 12,000-pound excavator with a smooth (non-toothed) bucket, two feet in length.
(The non-toothed bucket has some specific technical name that I can't recall because my brain remains fogged by the lingering exhaustion of illness. That's my excuse, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.)
The non-toothed bucket also is a good deal less efficient at digging, especially in rock-hard, bone-dry ground, but it has been decreed by They Who Rule The Septic Permits, and one does not lightly defy Them, if one wants one's septic system approved.
They have also decreed that the trenches – which are somewhere around two feet deep and 100(-ish? I think) feet long, vary in depth by no more than a single inch. It was tempting, if intemperate, to inquire whether we also would need to scale a glass mountain, but discretion prevailed: They might have said yes.
At any rate, DH ordered an excavator, and in due course, it arrived.
“Stop!” yelled DH. “That bucket is four feet! I ordered a two-foot bucket!”
“We don't have a two-foot bucket,” the delivery man said.
He took the excavator away again.
DH called more rental places, and found one in a city just about an hour away.
He explained that he needed a 12,000-pound excavator with a smooth (non-toothed) bucket, two feet in length.
Sure, they said. We'll have it there tomorrow morning.
It did not arrive tomorrow morning. They changed the delivery date three times before it finally arrived, while DH gnawed on his knuckles and performed frantic calculations and measurements.
But, at last, it came: A 9,000-pound excavator, with a two-foot bucket.
“I ordered a 12,000 pound excavator,” DH said.
“It's the same basic thing,” the man said.
It is not the same thing. There is a 3,000 pound difference.
“Well, we put them in the same category,” he said.
DH sighed and decided to take what he could get. The smaller, less powerful machine has slowed progress considerably.
I walked down to watch him work one day. When the bucket tries to dig into the (rock-hard, bone-dry) ground, the entire machine tilts forward, because it doesn't have the weight to remain squarely on its treads.
It's rather alarming to watch, and even harder on the operator, who gets banged up and down all day long.
However, progress is being made, and, the-gods-willing, will continue.
The timing was unfortunate, as getting the septic system in needs to happen with great promptness, a fact that DH fretted about even as he lay racked with fever, headache and coughing. Fortunately for us, if not for the general state of the climate, we were experiencing an unseasonal period of warm, dry weather, and it was painful to watch the days slip away without action.
The gods chose to smile upon us, however, and graciously extended the weather break, so as soon as he was on his feet, DH began frantically measuring and calculating, and calling equipment rental places.
He explained, first to our local place, that he needed a 12,000-pound excavator with a smooth (non-toothed) bucket, two feet in length.
(The non-toothed bucket has some specific technical name that I can't recall because my brain remains fogged by the lingering exhaustion of illness. That's my excuse, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.)
The non-toothed bucket also is a good deal less efficient at digging, especially in rock-hard, bone-dry ground, but it has been decreed by They Who Rule The Septic Permits, and one does not lightly defy Them, if one wants one's septic system approved.
They have also decreed that the trenches – which are somewhere around two feet deep and 100(-ish? I think) feet long, vary in depth by no more than a single inch. It was tempting, if intemperate, to inquire whether we also would need to scale a glass mountain, but discretion prevailed: They might have said yes.
At any rate, DH ordered an excavator, and in due course, it arrived.
“Stop!” yelled DH. “That bucket is four feet! I ordered a two-foot bucket!”
“We don't have a two-foot bucket,” the delivery man said.
He took the excavator away again.
DH called more rental places, and found one in a city just about an hour away.
He explained that he needed a 12,000-pound excavator with a smooth (non-toothed) bucket, two feet in length.
Sure, they said. We'll have it there tomorrow morning.
It did not arrive tomorrow morning. They changed the delivery date three times before it finally arrived, while DH gnawed on his knuckles and performed frantic calculations and measurements.
But, at last, it came: A 9,000-pound excavator, with a two-foot bucket.
“I ordered a 12,000 pound excavator,” DH said.
“It's the same basic thing,” the man said.
It is not the same thing. There is a 3,000 pound difference.
“Well, we put them in the same category,” he said.
DH sighed and decided to take what he could get. The smaller, less powerful machine has slowed progress considerably.
I walked down to watch him work one day. When the bucket tries to dig into the (rock-hard, bone-dry) ground, the entire machine tilts forward, because it doesn't have the weight to remain squarely on its treads.
It's rather alarming to watch, and even harder on the operator, who gets banged up and down all day long.
However, progress is being made, and, the-gods-willing, will continue.
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