Dump runs, barn clean out, ready to backfill foundations

Backfilling will begin Friday, after applying tar to the outside of the foundation

The concrete foundations are in. Tomorrow the builder will work on details like filing off any metal spikes protruding from the concrete and adding concrete into those areas. Then they will tar the outside of the house foundation just up to area that will be covered by soil.

After backfilling both foundations with soil starting Friday, you will only see the top couple of feet of the foundation. The garage will rise up with wood very soon. The house foundation will get its floor and get capped.

Backfilling the house first involves a layer of gravel surrounding a pipe that will drain any possible water that collects at the base of the foundation. The pipe will exit from under ground down near the road. The large piles of soil that came from the digging the cellar holes (minus any large rocks and fireplace bricks) will go back into the space surrounding the outside of the foundation walls.

Clean up will also happen of any debris on the site. Stumps, boulders, unused logs, excess soil and rocks, etc. The net result should be foundations ready to build on and a tidy yard.

My focus today was the barn on Ridge Road. After doing the chores at my barn in Massachusetts I made the 2 hour drive to Vermont. I worked on the piles of metal and junk that my sister and I had sorted last week. I filled the pickup truck with metal in just 15 minutes and tossed it into the metal dumpster at the landfill for free. The load of junk took more than an hour to fill the truck and also took a while to toss into the compactor. Checks or credit cards only. $30.00

I got two lemonades in Bethel and made the 2 hour drive home. Vermont was in the 80s, low 90s, but really didn't feel bad. Maybe the breeze in the Center. Got home just in time to do more horse chores, it was in the 90s here and felt like it. But the ground floor of the barn in Randolph is looking pretty good.