Hey, look who's back! Steve the backhoe driver. And just like before, he's digging massive boulders out of our lot, this time so we can install a septic system. Remember...The Ledge? It's not done with us yet. I watched with a familiar feeling of horror as Steve dug down and hit...rock. It looked EXACTLY like it did the last time. Big hole, planet sized piece of unmoving nastiness at the bottom. I was not a happy camper, especially when his partner Troy compounded my fears by casually mentioning that they may have to blast it out.

Troy is a new employee of Steve's and has no idea how close he came to losing a limb as a direct result of this innocent statement. I'm guessing he doesn't realize that the term "blast" is verboten here.

I managed to keep my cool and watched for a bit while Steve started attempting to break up the ledge.

Fortunately it isn't as tough as it used to be--owing, most likely, to the $10,000 worth of dynamite we threw at it last year. The camera chose that moment to have a dead battery. This is a shame because I missed some spectacular shots of the backhoe upending over the largest boulder I've seen on the land to date. I honestly thought it would just pitch windshield first into the hole and Steve would call it a day. I now remember why I have such a tremendous respect for this sturdy machine and the Heaven sent fellow who pilots it, because he managed to tear that rock from the dirt and roll it out of the pit. There's still some more digging to do, but I have my fingers crossed that that was the worst of it. I don't even want to think about the possibility that it might be necessary to blast again. It would be costly, and then I'd have to maim Troy on general principles.

Oh, and look--garage doors. No idea how long these have been here. I just noticed them for the first time.