Slowly, Steadily, Excavation Continues

Progress on excavating the build site has been slow.  The frequent Autumn rains has made it impossible to dig for days on end.  One of the challenges is that we are not only trying to remove dirt from the build site, but to construct roads with the excavated material.  A professional excavation company would generally have the simpler mandate of simply removing material from the build site and piling it in a huge mound somewhere else on the property or hauling it away in dump trucks.  We, however, wish to construct raised, crowned roads leading through the property.  This requires that the dirt be removed from the build site bucketful by bucketful and deposited in an organized pattern somewhere else.  This, of course, takes time.  Also, the dirt has to have the right moisture content.  If it is too wet, it becomes flowing mud which will not pack down and consolidate quickly.  (It will eventually dry out but until it does, it is a slippery flowing mass which cannot be driven on.)  We are surely making our task more difficult than others would consider but we feel the end result will, eventually, be worth it.

We have so far excavated this flat area
 but it has to be much larger before we are done.

Here, I pick up a load of newly excavated dirt with the tractor.

Elsewhere, I deposit it, spread it around, and compact it to form new road bed.