Had a good meeting this afternoon, then came home and went after the septic tank again. First I removed two wheelbarrows full of dirt. It's a bit awkward to dig out because of the stooping and also because of all the rocks. Over the past few years, the septic tank lid was broken and soil was slowly falling into it, but I didn't know it. All I knew was there was this mysterious sinkhole in the side yard. I used to fill it up with rocks. Which I now have to dig back out.
After digging out two wheelbarrows of dirt, I took the sledgehammer to the lid again. And now I can say that on Friday I seriously overestimated my contribution to the breaking up of the concrete. It went a lot faster when Georg and I were both working on it. I don't know if it's because he's that much stronger than I am, or because his arms are longer and he gets a bigger arc with the hammer. Probably both. Anyway it took me about a half hour to break up half of one slab. I started out with this vainglorious idea that I was going to break up a whole slab by myself, but common sense and my aching shoulders got the better of me and I quit after half a slab. And that was just cracking it up, not even moving the pieces. I let the pieces fall into the tank, which is fairly deep on that side, since the lid was solid over there and dirt didn't fall in. After the lid is all broken up I'll be able to climb down inside, break down the concrete into smaller pieces and lift them out.
I have to say, standing inside a septic tank is conceptually gross but not actually gross. After ten years of disuse, it's just a big concrete box full of dirt. (No, not "night soil," plain old dirt.) The part that wasn't full of dirt looks kind of creepy though. There's a metal grate down near the bottom and another chamber beyond it. It kind of looks like a dungeon for hiding kidnapped people or something. Can I say that or is it just too creepy? Because that really is what it looks like.
It's a good thing I stopped working when I did, because I barely had the energy left to put up a fence made of caution tape. My arm was shaking while I was hammering the stakes into the ground. But it had to be done. It's not safe to have a giant open hole in your yard, full of broken concrete and sharp wires. Especially since the gas and electric meters are behind the giant hole in the ground. I had a horrible vision of a meter man falling into the hole and hurting himself and suing us. At least the hole is outside the fence so there's no chance of the dogs falling in.
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