The time after finding the newt was spent by Dad and Dan picking through to the other side of the house and one especially obnoxious, rocky corner. Or they would jack-hammer on this 10 by 6 by who-knows-what boulder (in case you didn't catch that, it's 10 feet across the long way and 6 the short; we don't know how far deep it goes), and I would clear the chipped pieces out of their way and throw some of the large ones over the side to use in the trenches, but others we smashed with a sledge hammer to make gravel to fill in smaller spaces in the trench. Dad rented a demolition saw to attempt to score the boulder so it chips easier, but the $100+ blade after running only a couple hours was too thin and worn down to use. That boulder is still there. All proud of itself. Stupid boulder. I think Dan's gonna make part of it his furnace. But the rest we will have to break off later. It is so hard. The weirdest and toughest sandstone ever. While Dad ran the saw, I would spray it with water, but like I said, it didn't help too much. On normal rock, spraying the blade will make it last 3x longer. Stupid boulder. So we kinda forgot that for a while and dug around it. I think it was Friday that we finished that. Saturday and Monday, we sifted our fill. We still have a bit left to do. Also on Thursday, I found a couple snake eggs. I put those up by the tent out of the way, but I forgot to take them to the cabin that night, but Friday morning, they were still there and didn't change. Dad told me to put them in a bucket with some dirt in it. Saturday, I checked on them, and they were softer and had a few slightly translucent spots, but we couldn't see anything in there, only the glow of sunlight. Monday, checked them again, but no change. I will run up soon today to see what's happened. Oh, the eggs are very large, so they might be rattlers or copperheads or something, so I don't know what to do with them if they hatch. But they're still cool. Sunday afternoon, we went to the river down the rode to fish, but had no luck. We're gonna try to stock up on crickets for next time, because we tried a grasshopper Dan found, and a big trout immediately slurped off before I could get the hook set. So that's about it.
3 Comments
amy
6/21/2012 03:19:21 pm
Thx for sharing
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Lance
6/22/2012 01:07:57 am
Well, if you mean the boulder, no it won't pry out. It weighs more than 40,000 pounds. Archimedes may have fancied the "lever big enough to move the world", but it isn't happening here. The biggest pry bar we have can budge a 700 lb rock in ideal conditions. So by a factor of about 60, we can't move it with leverage. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts, and no moving it. It has to be chipped away, little by little and tossed out of the pit.
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Isaac
7/2/2012 08:13:31 am
I added a picture, which still doesn't do it justice.
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IsaacI'm 13 years old, building our new house with my dad and Dan. I like to bike, play the guitar, piano, and banjo, build with LEGOs, compose music, and creating games. Archives
April 2013
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