Slow and steady

Well it's been a while since I last put something on here so I should probably back track a bit and try to bring everyone up to speed. I think the last post was about the time that the well driller was arriving with his truck. A lot has happened since then, though I was certainly hoping to be farther along than we are at this point. I was able to find someone with a mini excavator to do the trench work for the water as well as the septic drain pipe which was quite nice as that freed me up to other things. Mainly digging the holes for the piers.
Maybe I should back up a bit and explain that the yurt will be erected on a platform which will sit a minimum of about 14" off the ground. The platform consists of a number of 4X8" beams sitting parallel to each other on concrete piers which are sunk into the ground about 4'. The beams will be the support for the floor which is made up of 2X6" toungue and groove flooring. The platform will be exactly the dimension of the yurt which has a 30' diameter.
Work on the pier holes has been much more time consuming than I had hoped, though I should have assumed that we would encounter many rocks if not ledge in the process. Initially Rina and I had an auger for the skid steer which I had hoped would drill down to the desired depth and we would have minimal had digging to do to get the holes ready for the sona tubes. This turned out not to be very effective since we encounter many rocks in most of the holes which caused the auger to either stop dead or veer off from the target. So the next step was another stop at the local rental center to pick up a jackhammer which we have used to break uo or loosen rocks or break through ledge to a suitable depth. Wow, that is a lot of work, and I don't know what I would have done had I not had the help of Dale and Rina. Generally spirits have been high, and we have certainly all slept well every night.
I have been able to fill in some of the trench and we should have a temporary water hook up on monday which will be very helpful for mixing concrete. I will also get our plumbing permit on monday so that we can lay the first sections of waste pipe and fill in the trench that is still open. The weather has been great for most of the past week with only some light showers this afternoon. They were enough to make things pretty mucky, but they are supposed to move out by tomorrow morning.
All in all things are going well, and with any luck we will be pouring some concrete quite soon. Then it's on to the carpentry which we are all eagerly awaiting. Everyone will be quite glad to not dig in the dirt for a while! Leslie, Abrahm, and my dad will arrive at the end of this week which I am really looking forward to, and we'll see how far we get. I'll try to write again soon.