DIGGING FOR SERPENTINE

When I think of excavation I think of an archaeological dig.  And when the digging began, our lot certainly looked a lot more like that than the site of a future home, although the most likely archaic find would be possum bones.  The first step once the lot was scraped was for Bob to lay out the house corners using pink strings and markers in the ground. Then the foundation crew moved the control points up onto batter boards, which are wood set-ups that are fixed in place. Bob then lay out more lines for excavation.  Next more excavation happened, then more lay out and more moving of batter boards, and once again excavation in a back and forth sequence.

I was most struck by how deep the lowest point was.  That is because our soil is not that great, and the most solid foundation in our case would depend on pouring concrete footings over bedrock.  Our bedrock has serpentine as part of it’s composition – it is light in color and looks cool.  So in the end, our “dig” resulted in uncovering something quite interesting.