Land Clearing
Friday, February 27, 2004

One day to go. The last preparation step was to clear the land of grass, rocks, and fire ants. It was desirable to get the land as flat as possible. This was the job for the Bobcat. This process, however, would lose the spot so carefully chosen last November as the center.

Marking the Center

Mike arrived early the day of the land clearing in order to mark the location of the center. It had taken about an hour to locate the center the first time, and he didn’t want to waste time the next day doing it again. In order to mark the center, he placed a two pair of stakes outside of the perimeter of the labyrinth, in locations (he hoped) would be out of the Bobcat’s path. Each stake of a pair was located directly across center from each other such that a string strung between them would run across the center point of labyrinth. The two pairs of stakes were far enough away from each other such that, when the strings were strung between each pair, the center would be revealed again where they intersected. In other words, “X marks the spot”.

Then he turned to his second job of the day: A old outdoor stage near the labyrinth had plywood on the top of it. He had permission from the Church to remove this plywood so that it could be used to build a path for the Bobcat when it had to travel across the weed block. The plywood could also serve to protect the weed block from the wheelbarrows, if necessary.

Enter the Bobcat

By this time, Thomas from Austin Power Equipment had arrived with the Bobcat and our Bobcat driver for the day, Tom, was ready to get down to the earth moving. After receiving instructions from Susan as to where the area needed to be cleared, and where to place the excess top soil, the rest of the party cleared out of the area while Tom did his thing.

While he was hard at work, Thomas took the Bobcat’s trailer and retrieved the three sitting boulders that Susan had discovered. When he arrived, they interrupted Tom and the Bobcat from their land clearing long enough to remove the boulders from the trailer.

Everyone took a moment to admire the sitting boulders, for they were great finds, and then it was back to work! Tom had the land cleared in no time, and Mike and Susan, with a lot of help from Hayden, finished removing the plywood from the stage.

Bill, Hayden, Susan and Tom discuss the finer points of Bobcat operation.

So the stage was set for the great work the next day. (Well, OK, the actual stage was now partially disassembled, but you know what I mean!)