Before excavation could start, everything in the way had to be removed, including the old asphalt, a couple of tree trunks, the old garage, old house foundation footings, etc.

The excavator spend several good hours removing one giant tree trunk in particular.  Here are our girls sitting on the trunk before it was removed.

The excavator had to play with the stump quite a bit to break it up in to a size that he was able to load into a dump truck, as the overall trunk was far too heavy to life.

That camphor tree was probably about 30-40 feet tall. It is a fast-growing tree so I am guessing that it was no more than 30 years or so old, probably planted in the 1980’s when the last remodel was done on the old house.

It is considered an invasive species, the berries are poisonous to animals and humans, and it makes a horrible mess year-round, especially on cars, so we won’t miss it.  Unfortunately, almost all the mature trees on our lot, with the exception of six palms and two oak trees, were similarly very messy types, so we’ll eventually have to start over with new planting to get shade trees established again, of a less messy variety.

The excavator has started digging the beginnings of the new driveway, which is on the opposite side of the lot as the old one.

We were asked by one of the members of the planning board why we were moving the driveway from one side of the lot to the other.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t our choice.  The solar access ordinance doesn’t allows us to build in a way that shades the neighbors lot, so we have to build on the sun side of the lot and therefore the driveway has to be on the opposite side.

The old sandstone wall at the end of the dig, which is a historic resource, will have to be carefully taken apart by hand, and the stones preserved to rebuild the wall in the mouth of the old driveway.

The process of removing all the old surface artifacts has caused a few inconveniences for us living in the old house.  The sewer line, which turned out to be exceptionally shallow, was busted through twice, and the water line was ripped out when the tree stump was removed.  These were quickly repaired and we could once again flush.  🙂

And, until the new driveway is completed and covered with road base, we must walk through a dirt lot to get between the house and the street.  Hopefully only a couple more weeks of this.