The weekend arrived with the site prepped for installing rebar and pouring footers after inspection on Monday.

A couple of folks have asked about the nest of conduit we have rockin’ the backyard. Below is a quick overview of the parade of PVC that pervades our patio. Note that these are the intended uses. It’s quite possible that Buddy the box turtle also uses one or more of these as covert, subterranean passages to get around the yard. (We’re really not sure what Buddy does when we’re not around . . .).

Here’s how the back of the house looks at this stage of demolition:

Everything seemed stable and ready for Monday, then we got rain, resulting in somewhat of a mud pit:

It was exactly like the ankle-deep mud we trudged through a few years ago when biking from Vienna to Budapest. Our intended route between Estergom, Hungary, and Budapest got flooded out by the Danube, so we had to resort to a little off-roading (except, of course, that our tires sunk in to the hubs, so we ended up walking for a while). Here’s how Lisa dealt with it at the time:

We didn’t try riding our bikes through the mud-floor basement, but you get the idea.