Trenches dug

After not showing up on Monday, Ronnie and his crew seem to have finished digging the trenches for the slab beams today (Tuesday) in about 3 hours from 10am-1pm.  The trenches are way deep, perhaps over 30 inches (I didn't measure).  Some kind of power equipment was being used.  Ronnie had previous said it was difficult/impossible to dig through compacted gravel on the southwest side of the slab where the earlier beam trench had been (and which had therefore to be filled up with gravel and recompacted with machine).

A 6 mil plastic vapor barrier has been placed where the inside portion of the slab will be.

Moving forwards, slowly but goodly.  Quick recap back to June 6.

Monday June 6...finished half of trench digging, but then I discovered easement encroachment issue and spent hours on phone.  After hearing that it would cost $720 to get variances from CPS and AT&T, Ronnie reluctantly agreed to move slab forms back 18 inches (ultimately it was 2 feet, 1 foot gap to back 12 foot easement).

June 7...Ronnie showed me new forms after moving, didn't look as good, I complained about appearance forms and lack of new machine compacting.  Ronnie collected $1500 for slab upgrades from original design and moving.

June 8 No Show

June 9  No Show (if I remember correctly), I was beginning to panic "is Ronnie skipping out on me", I shouldn't have complained so much, particularly about the appearance of the wood forms, which was nothing and which Ronnie promised to fix but i complained a second time, I was thinking.

June 10 Ronnie showed up with worker and mechanical compactor, did re-compacting, confessed that it was really good idea to do mechanical compacting after all.  Started digging new back trench but said machine was needed to cut through compacted gravel

Monday June 13  No show

June 14  Ronnie showed up with workers and finished digging trenches for slab beams, put vapor barrier over gravel in center of slab

Dirt piled up all around now, I hope some of that gets used as backfill to mitigate slope.