Monday, September 14, 2015

Alice just went down the rabbit hole

I filled in a hole in my back yard

     I had seen this hole throughout the summer.  It seemed to get bigger and bigger.  There was no dirt around it, so I did not think it was an animal.
     Now that is contrary to my thoughts about the hole by the hickory tree and the hole under my raised garden.....definitely animal holes.
     I was moving sand from my dirt pile.  I was putting it in 5 gallon plastic buckets and then driving to Emily's house and dumping it an area that will be stripped of tornado debris filled soil.
     Problem is, I only have two buckets and a little plastic tub.  I can't lift a lot of weight, so that was an ideal amount.  It takes a long time to move sand when you are using two 5 gallon plastic buckets.    Take my word for it.
     Any way, I have all this sand and all these rocks and I think:  Why not fill the hole?
     So I take a bucket with 10 baseball sized rocks and wander over to the hole.  I drop the first one in and it seems to go a long way before I hear a clunk.  So I drop in a second.  And a third.  After I dropped the 10th one in, I went back for more rocks.  I dropped in 15 rocks or so.
     I took a half bucket of sand and poured it in.  It just went down.
     I got another half bucket.  Poured it in.  Down it went.
     I ended up with six half buckets before the hole was full.
     Now I am worried.
     I assume the clunk I heard was the septic tile.
     (Digression and lesson.   In the country, we don't often have sewer systems.  We have septic fields.  The crap leaves the house, goes into a big tank, then eventually leaches out into the septic field....a series of perforated pipes about 12 inches underground.  The home juices filter through the tile and percolate downward.  If all works right, life is golden.  If a field fails, it is a pretty expensive proposition to install a new one.)
     I hope the sand doesn't do anything bad to the septic tile.  I hope the tile wasn't damaged by the rocks.  I hope I don't walk out into a wet backyard one day.  I hope I don't regret my filling of the hole.
     But then again, having the hole there could have been a problem in itself so maybe I am worried about nothing.
     Which is my normal state.
     All that loading and lifting has made me one tired puppy tonight.....hopefully I will sleep the night away.
     Because tomorrow I need to finish the job of moving the dirt and sand pile.
     Two buckets at a time.


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