Adventures in Septic Tank Replacement

So last weekend we started having septic tank issues.  The pump was running and never shutting off.  We checked the tank to find it full.  We figured one of the hoses must be plugged so on Monday evening we had our neighbor come over with his honey wagon and pump it out.  To our dismay, the bottom was full of concrete, the tank had collapsed on itself and the hose and plugged everything.

Here's how the last week of our life went:
Monday - get the septic tank pumped out and find out it's collapsed
Tuesday - call Sask1stCall and get all our lines located (which of 3, only one was correct)
Wednesday - get the contractor to come out and make a plan (Colin from Graham Contracting, he and his crew were AWESOME!!), call for a quote on 30 yards of pea gravel
Thursday - get the gravel delivered (which they didn't even tell us they were going to do), start digging looking for the power line (which we could not find because it was much deeper then we thought it was)
Friday - the crew shows up, finds out all the lines are marked out wrong, find the right lines, get the power to the house diverted (since the power and phone lines went right over the old tank)
Saturday - crew comes back out, gets the tank in and digs the trench for the power to go back in
Saturday Night - huge storm, we lose power for the whole night, which only happened because we had company
Sunday - wake up to 2 and a half inches of rain, have to dig the power trench out by hand, get the main power hooked back up; my other half, my dad, and I come out looking like mud monsters and are all at least 3 feet taller
Monday - the crew comes back and finishes the wiring in the middle of the giant clay and dirt mud whole and patches the ground up as best they can (which didn't turn out to be very much because everything was soooo wet); the backhoe gets stuck in the back and the tractor and trailers get stuck in the field

So a one to two day job turned into a 4 day job for the contractor and his crew.  I think they were definitely happy to be leaving the house of bad luck!  The dogs are definitely happy that the constant parade of people to our house is now over.  Although Jaxie was happy that she got to spend a few days in the house!  Our contractor and his crew were super amazing.  They were always very nice and professional, even when things were not going so great.  They felt really bad that they had to leave everything in such a state of disaster but it was not their fault the rain decided to dump on us.  They were definitely a pleasure to work with and made the whole situation seems not quite so bad.  I would (and, unfortunately, probably will) use them again and would recommend them to anyone!  And if you need cheep gravel, call AllRock in Saskatoon.

Here's the new septic tank:

The backhoe starting to dig:

Our yard after and the top of the new tank:

Where the bobcat got stuck:

My new dirt pile:

Where the semi and trailers were stuck:

Their equipment:

We definitely could not have made it through this without my mom and dad.  My dad helped out so much with getting the contractor and with all the wiring side of everything.  Colin Graham from Graham Contracting squished us in between two other jobs that he was working, which is totally awesome otherwise we would still probably not have a septic tank.  So I guess we were pretty lucky in a couple ways.

Now if it would just stop raining so I can start to get the yard put back together!  Oh well, until then, I guess it's back to work on the bar!

Birthday Gifts

I recently attended several birthday parties.  Everyone has so much stuff nowadays that it's really either gift card or something hand-made for gifts.  There really is no point blogging about gift cards so here are the hand-made ones.

I whipped up a couple dish clothes for one.  I had asked what her favorite color was and she said she really liked the blue and yellow in her kitchen, perfect!

One of the balls of yarn had a pattern for this bag.  I knew that this person liked to go to the farmer's market and stuff so I decided to try it out with the leftover yarn from the dish clothes.  I think it turned out pretty good and would be very handy for carrying fruits or vegetables.  And because it's made out of the cotton yarn, you can just throw it in the wash if it gets dirty!  It came out a little smaller then I had hoped but pretty good for a first time.

The second gift was for a chick that is currently trying to become a vet and loves frogs.  I came across these cute fellows in a magazine and just had to make them.

Everyone seemed pleased with their gifts.  Cheap, easy, and mostly useful!  Just the way I like it :o)