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twisted together in a chaos
Monday, February 3 2014
Snow fell for most of the day, though it didn't add up to more than about three inches. It was snowing this morning when I took the dogs for a walk, though that didn't seem to be much of a problem. Ever since Darla pulled that stunt on me where she stopped following at some point along the trail and then failed to come when I repeatedly called for her, I've had the habit of constantly checking to see if she is with me. Sometimes today she did stop following me, though it was always because she's hoping to ambush Olive, who can be something of a laggard (though not the kind that doesn't come when called).
Down in the greenhouse basement, the water table is low and slow, so when I used the little one gallon/minute pump to evacuate the deepest part, no water could be seen percolating back in through the bedrock. I jackhammered a little, but it was less pleasant to do so once the water was mostly pumped out. When the rock being jackhammered is exposed to the air, the amount of dust generated isn't all that high, but there are a lot of stone chips being flung from the tip of the chisel at speeds high enough to make one happy to be wearing glasses. And when the rock is damp, those chips are accompanied by a spray of tiny muddy droplets, which quickly dapple one's clothing. Looking at the bottommost bluestone for the first time in months, I see that it's a gnarly mangle of layers, all twisted together in a chaos that probably gives it the strength to elude all previous excavation efforts. But the chisel of the jackhammer easily penetrates into this material, opening up visible cracks running many inches in all directions. That said, I can't just pluck this loosened material out yet the way I could with the upper layers of rotten shale; some of it is beneath frigid water and some of those cracks will have to be further exploited with chisels and crowbars. But the potential is there for much more excavation once conditions become acceptable.
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