Let's face it, living in the country can be kinda dangerous. And it doesn't help when your a little clumsy. Okay, okay - a LOT clumsy. I blame it on sinus issues and an inner ear thing. My husband believes I was just born this way, and has more than once said I shouldn’t leave the house unless I was covered in bubble wrap.
Since we purchased to Rock House, I have been almost killed by an Eagle (that was attached to a flagpole), been crushed by falling maple tree (ok, it was only a limb, but still. It was a really BIG limb), cut open my thumb hitching up a trailer, and fell when picking up dog poop (and yes, I fell IN the poop; not my finest moment).
I thought I would be safe on the tractor. It's just a hobby tractor after all, and not much more than a glorified lawnmower. My husband always seemed more concerned over his own personal safety than mine when I drove it.
I've been playing on it for several weeks and have gotten the hang of the rear box blade and front end loader (you learn a lot spreading approximately 39 tons of gravel over the course of three days), so when we decided to backfill the new aerobic system, my husband sat me up there and said "get to it... just don't run into anything or tip it over."
So... a little background here.... The old septic system was lateral lines, and after 50 years, the inspector said it was at the end of its life. We decided to collapse the tank and put in a brand new fancy aerobic system since they are cheaper, work a little better in rocky/claylike soil (which we have), and work famously as a sprinkler system - just ask anyone who has one; the grass is beautifully green around the sprinkler heads.
For the record, I haven't been happy with the install of our new system, mostly due to the customer service post install. I was also a little concerned with the way the "collapsed" the old tank, but what do I know about septic systems installs?
Nothing, that's what.
That's why I pay the professionals - I quite literally don't want to know crap about crap.
Two things you have to keep in mind:
1. It rained here over the weekend, and while the ground was moist, it wasn't muddy, but it is clay so water tends to do some odd things beneath the soil.
2. Our new septic (you know, the one I've been tasked with backfilling) is only about 15 feet from the old "collapsed" tank.
Notice I put quotes around "collapsed".... yeh, they didn't "collapse anything. They filled it with dirt, put the lit on it at an angle, covered it up, and called it a day.
How do I know this?
'Cause I'm kinda turning into a creepy old lady, and I spied on them out one of the bedroom windows while they were doing the install.
Anywhoo... back to how the Tractor tried to Kill Me....
We were making good progress filling in where it had settled with the eyesore of a dirt mound in the front yard they left us with, when the tractor started to feel a little "wonky". If you've ever been on a raft in a pool when someone did a cannonball next to you, you'll know the kind of "wonky" I'm talking about. Not a feeling one would associate with being on a tractor. I look down, and sure enough, the ground is moving, kinda look like pudding, around one of my back tires.
But it wasn’t muddy. Suffice it to say that dry dirt, should not, under any circumstances, move like this…..
Apparently, a haphazardly placed lid on the old tank, combined with it being covered in a layer of muddy clay, then a crusty top, was cause the ground to act in peculiar ways.
I hollered at the hubsters, who was hard at work hand-raking what I was meticulously dumping in the more narrow and delicate spaces, and said “Hey, the ground is moving!!”
To which he replied, “What do you mean it’s moving?”
I said, “Come here and look!”
I backed up and forth a few times so he could observe, and his advice was, “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be driving over that.”
I probably should have taken his advice and just hired a professional.
A couple of loads later, the ground more than moved. It basically took my right rear tire down like a struggling man in quicksand. Luckily, the hubster’s heard my screams of panic and came running.
Between the two of us, we were able to right the tractor before it toppled all the way over. He again said “Don’t drive over that.”
Yeh, well…. I’ve never been one to follow the rules.
The way they laid out the new system and the pile of dirt, combined with a retaining wall on the opposite side, make it virtually impossible to avoid driving over the old tank to backfill the new... it's a recipe for disaster.
It was a little harder to “right the ship” the second time around, but, thankfully, we both walked away unscathed.
Two days later, I talked the husbsters into getting me a chainsaw….
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