One side of the house was dug out yesterday afternoon. It's just starting to hit me, how much bigger the new foundation will be. The crawl space is being dug out, as well as the front porch, neither of which were part of the basement before. We'll need a couple of supporting walls under different parts of the house (it's 45 feet long), but as my dad said, "the walls won't be a foot thick!", which translates into a lot more space. The water heater and softener are being moved from the other end of the basement(!) to the same room as the boiler and well stuff. Hopefully that means we'll get hot water upstairs a lot sooner, because it used to have to travel a long way.
The old foundation contains a lot of limestone - big, thick chunks that have brought out the Farm Syndrome in Dad. Farm Syndrome, for those who don't know, is when, after being at the farm for a certain amount of time, a person develops an intense desire to Save Everything: wood, pipe, Cool-Whip containers, and yes, rocks. I have to admit that Mike, Dad, and I all have Farm Syndrome (FS), because saving the limestone sounded like a good idea to me. What a great patio! Or wall, or garden path, or...something! Of course, one of the side effects of FS is not recognizing all the work involved in collecting and storing everything until one comes up with a use for it. In this case, it mea
ns moving a lot of heavy rocks out of the construction zone and stacking them up someplace else. Hopefully all the work will be "worth it", although this phrase means nothing to someone with FS: saving something is Always Worth It, even if that odd bolt or jar of screws will only be useful to whoever lives on the farm 30 years from now. I can't count the number of times we've needed a specific, odd part and thought, "Y'know, before I run to the store, I'll take a look in one of these buildings", and found exactly what we needed. Of course, FS can only be successful if you have multiple storage buildings available, so I wouldn't recommend it for apartment dwellers.
Digging continues for the rest of the week. The house movers will have to come back out and move the "cribbing" (stacks of wood that hold up the house) so they can dig under them, but for now they're working around them. This is the part I can't watch, 'cuz seeing bulldozers that close to the only thing holding up my house makes me a leeeetle bit nervous.
uz he was standing around shooting the breeze with the other guys the whole time I was there. Of course, around here everyone knows everyone, so they had plenty to talk about. They were probably related, for all I know. Jordan fell asleep in the car, so I took the kids home and came back two hours later, and the footings were poured! I had to include a photo of the well-decorated mixer (Go Twins!). All the rooms are laid out, including the window well for the egress. The next step is a little more complicated. Either the house movers will come out tomorrow and move the cribbing (put up four new stacks, then take down the old ones) so they can dig out the rest of the 
dirt, or they'll start building the block walls tomorrow and leave an opening. Then they'll set the house down, and remove the dirt through the opening after the cribbing is removed. It seems to make no difference to the concrete guys, but there is a LOT of dirt left. Either way, they won't pour the floor until the drain tile is in and the walls are done. So if you want to bury a time capsule under my house, now is the time! We kept hoping we would find the long-lost family fortune under there, but all we found so far is a hat. As for the last photo here, I really hope that guy gets his hammer back.
