The Sand Has Arrived (mostly)

We had decided that if at all possible we would get our sand dumped directly into the pit.  This would avoid the horrible fate of having enormous sand piles in the front driveway which would require multiple hundreds of wheelbarrow trips to the back yard.  The only problem would be the truck driving over our lawn.  The sand company told us that their full size trucks never deliver to residential back yards.  Upon seeing the size of the trucks, I could see why.  They gave us the name of an independent contractor, Andy, who has a smaller truck that delivers 5 cubic yards at a time compared to 10 with the big trucks.   I called Andy and had him come out to assess whether he was comfortable bringing his truck around through the front yard to the pit.  His main concern was whether the grass was too soft or not.  I had the feeling that he would make the delivery if I gave him the green light regardless.  It hadn't really rained at all since the day I dug the hole with the excavator, so the lawn was pretty firm.  I decided to give it a go and see what happened.

The next day Andy arrived at 8:45 am.  It had rained slightly that night, as fate would have it.  He drove the truck, which was slightly over its rated weight in sand, onto the front lawn, then pulled forward again.  We took a look at the track that were left behind and decided that the displacement was acceptable.  Not ideal, but acceptable.  It was quite obvious that two parallel dump-truck sized ruts were impressed into the lawn.  Luckily they were not too deep.  He jumped back into the truck and backed it up to dump the first load into the pit!  We finally had sand, but there was a lot of work to do yet.  Andy would go back to the quarry and reload to return with two more dumps for the day, as he had a bigger job in Houston (30 minutes up the road).  It was a scramble to move enough sand to clear a spot for a second, and even more difficult to clear for a third dump.  News flash:  wet sand is heavy!!!  The truck had a 30-minute round trip that seemed more like 10.  We had just flattened out the first dump when the second came.  By time the third had arrived, we had barely gotten the top bit of the pile knocked down.  The third dump ended up being a tricky maneuver to fid a corner that was free of sand.  All but 1 and 1/2 sides are unaccessable for the dump.  We fit it in and spent the rest of the day re-distributing sand across the bottom of the pit to affix the landscaping fabric for good.

Three down, six to go.

On the Level

Now that the digging was done (at least in the hole), it was time to make sure all the sides were more or less level.  The sides that I had driven the excavator over had sunk a bit making the 4x6 edges out of level. They would need to be shimmed up to allow the additional layer of 4x4s that I add in the winter for the ice to fit right.  If the sides are out of level there would be gaps between the boards allowing water to escape and making it very difficult to make ice.  Additionally the ice would appear to "slant" as one side of the frame would be lower than the other.  It was off again to Lowes to get some bricks and landscaping fabric.  While shopping for bricks, a lady came up to me and told me that they were cheaper at Home Depot.  I bought the landscaping fabric and went to Home Depot.  Indeed the bricks were cheaper and in addition, their previously-sold out stock of landscaping fabric had been replenished.  I bought landscaping fabric from them too.  I'll have to return the ones I bought from Lowe's later.

Andrew and I got back into the yard and started leveling the pit board by board.  We started at the corner with the entry to the deck and moved around the court board-by-board making sure that all was level.  The far end was out of level by more than two inches!  After checking level, we shimmed the joints of the boards by digging out and placing two cinder blocks and a brick under them for added support.  Hopefully this will prevent settling later on.

All shimmed up, it was time to lay out the fabric.  I wanted to put the fabric up the sides as well as on the bottom since 1) dirt was on the sides and therefore weeds, and 2) I wanted to prevent sand from escaping and/or dirt from getting into the court.  Using staples from my staple gun, I affixed the end of the fabric just above the bottom of the top board.  Then I laid out the fabric across the bottom to the other end.  I used left over deck nails to pin the fabric to the bottom so it would not blow away or otherwise move.  This was one of the easiest and straightforward part of the process so far.  The rink has been transformed from a mud pit to a deep mud pit to something that now resembles a shallow swimming pool.  So as of now, We are ready for the sand to be delivered tomorrow.

Completing the Big Dig

We have finally completed the digging portion of the project.  After the one and only day of rain during the equipment rental, the weather dried out and dried everything nicely to finish the project.  The excavation left us disappointingly far from a perfect hole.  For four solid days, Andrew and I shoveled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt out of the pit and up the hill onto the Bobsled run.  The digging combined with the uphill pushing of the wheelbarrow was very physical work, and I was glad to have such a great helper in Andrew.

I had started digging to the right of the dirt ramp we were using to cart the material out of the hole.  We continued clockwise all around the perimeter of the 4x6 frame attempting vertical sides and a level bottom. As the digging progressed, the pit began to look more like a swimming pool without water in it.  The project was finally looking like something more than a mud pit.  Neighbors began to get intrigued, and on the last day some of the neighbor kids actually jumped into the pit with shovels in hand.  It was a great blessing again, as it allowed me to save energy from digging to allow me to be able to push more wheelbarrows of dirt up the hill.

On June 8, the last shovel of dirt left the pit, and only the ramp remained to be re-distributed along the bottom.  I got up early in the morning and started the last bit of digging and raking.  When I finally had a flat base and square sides, the next phase began.  I spent about two hours digging out a drainage trench down the middle of the bottom of the hole.  Again, the removed dirt was re-distributed along the bottom.  Sod was then removed from the lawn on the downhill side of the court.  The trench was then extended out 15 feet further downhill.  After a visit to Lowes the next day, drainage tile was laid out into the trench.

We are now in the final stages of the construction.  I will get a bunch of bags of pea gravel to pack in the drainage time and then shim all the sides of the frame to level using bricks and dirt backfill.  After that, the landscaping fabric will be put in place to cover the entire base.  Then the sand will arrive.  The timeframe looks good to finish before Family arrives at the end of the month.

The Genie is Out of the Bottle

Today we finally pulled the trigger and rented equipment to dig out the rink.  The pawnshop around the corner also has a tool rental with a variety of different digging vehicles to choose from.  I had up until yesterday wanted to rent a Bobcat so as to end up with a nice smooth bottom of the court.  When I went in to rent to Bobcat, however, the guys at the shop told me that I would have a very hard time with the Bobcat, as it is not really meant as a digging tool.  It is more of a loader.  My research had told me that a Bobcat was the best way to go, and honestly, I could think of nothing that would work better.  An excavator would be OK, but I would end up with giant piles of dirt with no real way to move them, and the bottom would be unacceptably ragged.  After much discussion and deliberation, I decided to rent a mini skid loader instead of a full size Bobcat because the full size Bobcats were way too big, and I was afraid they would tear up the lawn.  Just as I was about to rent the Mini loader, one of the employees suggested I look at the combination loader/excavator.  It happened to be the same price as the original Bobcat I had intended on renting, and had the added benefit of having both tools in one.  I filled out the paperwork and hopped on my newly-rented tractor.

It had not rained for nearly four weeks, so there was no need to check the weather for the next day.  I got home from the rental shop at about 6:30 pm and got right to work.  I would have about three hours of digging before it would be too late to be making any more noise.  I quickly found out that i needed to watch the back end of the tractor as well as the front.  As I would scrape out a hole and drove down into it to remove more from the other side, the excavator boom settled onto the ground and I was stuck.  Trying to drive out of the situation was useless, as the drive wheels just spun.  I next got out of the driver's seat and attempted to pull the tractor out of the situation with the excavator boom.  No good.  Finally, after analyzing the situation, I realized that I would have to dig the back end by hand.  Kinda defeats the whole purpose of renting a digging machine, right?  By the end of the day, I had gotten stuck at least four more times, but was getting better at extracting myself.

The next day we awoke to the first solidly overcast day for as long as I could remember.  I made some Egg McMuffins and coffee and got ready to go out and dig.  The second I got on the seat, the rain began (this is why I don't go to Vegas to gamble).  I would now be digging in the mud for the rest of the day.  Aside from getting really wet, the job went smoothly for awhile.  I was no longer getting stuck, and was making progress in the hole.  A new problem popped up - where to put all the dirt I was digging out?  I had begun putting it at the bottom of the "bobsled run" on the hill in our back yard, but that pile was getting too big, and I could no longer move it up hill, because it was turning into slippery mud.  I spent a good 2 hours constructing a "road" so I could move the dirt up to the top of the hill.  This decreased the amount of useful time I could use the machine to dig, but it was imperative to move the dirt to somewhere other than a big pile on the side of the court.  

The rental was for 24 hours or 8 meter hours.  I kept an eye on the meter as I knew that would expire first.  With three tenths left into the rental, I exited the pit and drove the tractor out front for a hose-off.  it would take exactly 3/10 on the meter to drive it back to the rental shop.  The beast was covered in mud, and it took a lot of high pressure spraying to clean the bulk of the dirt from it.  I left a nice tractor-shaped dirt pile at the bottom of the driveway.

At the end of the day, I had moved a lot of dirty, but was not overly satisfied with the progress.  The rain had caused me to lose at least two hours of useful work.  There is still a huge job to be done by hand.  Andrew has been talking about how he wants to bulk up his muscles for the next hockey season.  Looks like I got me a partner for the next phase!