leach field has been started

 Martin and I staked out where the leach field and septic tank will be going. 

 Martin had the pleasure of digging up the sod, top soil, and sub soil from the leach field with very little help from me.

 The plan is to use the sand that is under the top soil and sub soil for making concrete for the slabs in the basement and barn. 

 Once Martin reached sand, he could use the back hoe to dig. However, our little back hoe isn't good at moving dirt to the top of a pile out of a hole. So Martin is dragging the sand to the edge of the leach field and then shoveling it into a pile out of the leach field.

 In the photo above, Martin needed to do a small repair to the back hoe.

A bit more hedgerow added

An tigin's soil isn't soil. It is sand. 100% sand. 

To grow much of anything, we will need to amend the soil. We have started hauling in manure and have a compost bin working.

 But at the same time, I realized that I could take advantage of the sand, especially where the hedgerow is going to be near the road. The plants will be exposed to sand and salt from the road being treated in the winter.

 I remembered a time, while visiting a friend in Maryland, that we went to the beach and he showed me some native beach plums. I did a bit of research and beach plums are also native in Maine (along the coast).  So I bought 3 beach plums (they have the yellow tags).

 Then friends of mine dug up some of their rosa rugosa (sea roses, are you seeing a theme here?) and transplanted them to my hedgerow. 

Stairs to the basement

When Martin framed out the opening for the basement stairs, he didn't know exactly the level of the finished basement floor.

Since then, he has figured out where the stairs need to end and realized that the stairs wouldn't meet code.

 That meant he needed to make the stairwell opening into the basement bigger. To do that he had to cut out a header and resupport the floor.

 As you can see, in spite of the headache of moving the header and enlarging the stairwell opening, Martin has finished the stairs to the basement. 

He will need to take them out temporarily when we pour the floor.