We're Doing This.

Bucket List stuff. Lila really wanted to join us.

Well, the morning brought relief to my mind and by noon most of my questions were about to be answered. Not to mention the welcome sight of La Maquina AKA The Excavator about to take its first scoop out of the ground.
Holy Moly these things are POWERFUL.

When we were having a tough time securing one of them, Jorge had mentioned digging by hand but seeing the work that this beast did, I am sure glad we waited.

Wow.

First scoop. As cliché as it is, it choked me up a little bit.

What a high to watch this huge hole appear, big stones being moved out of the way, and not so slowly creating the septic tank. The gentleman operating the machine said that one more meter and we would hit water. There was a brief discussion about switching directions and digging a well but Jorge said that 1) it would be more expensive and 2) it’s a matter of time before we get city water. A year or two was his guess. So for now, we are going to go with the aljibre system and get water delivered by truck to fill it, then having the pump bring it to the tenaco (big water reservoir on the roof) which will then deliver water to the house.

Starting on the fosa.

Having dug up the fosa, attention then turned to digging up the foundation along the chalk marks that we had drawn.

At some point we needed to decide where the connection places for the two kitchen sinks would go (outdoor winter kitchen which becomes indoor summer kitchen) and I got to draw up a tiny sketch right there on the spot.

Meanwhile, I had shared my middle-of-the-night fears with Anselmo and he reassured me that the ground was strong and solid. He then said that this lot was much better than the one I had first considered, closer to the jungle, which would have been more sandy. I was l glad to have been guided in that direction and sent a quick nod of gratitude in the direction of the big house, up the hill. Catarino – the third member of the crew – said that this was going to be great gardening dirt and I asked him if he would help me design the garden, as I had heard him talk about plants several times. He said he would and that yes, landscaping and gardening were his specialties.

About the not-looking-quite-enough blocks question, another delivery was made today and I was told that it would most likely be all we needed. 2000 blocks total. 14 cm each one.

As we left (after getting a quick ride in the bucket which had been our secret mission all along), they were about to start digging the aljibre. Tomorrow morning is Saturday and it will be just a few hours of cleaning up the dug-up tunnels to start laying the foundation on Monday!

Oh, and remember the white rock I was really hoping to have? It got extracted from the ground and it is huge and beautiful! There will be several nice big stones to place in the garden.

Watching... I wonder what she is thinking. I guess I often wonder what she is thinking.

SO AMAZING.