Fire is the answer

So, we were having a bit of trouble getting started on digging out the house. For every square meter of the ground floor, there are two wheel-barrels full of dirt and three or four buckets of stones and rock to pull out … and we need somewhere to put it all, since we might need it later.

Excavation

There’s a bit of room in front of the house, but that means hauling them up and out through the front door, which requires arm strength that I don’t have. So we needed to make room around the back, but it was occupied by piles of trees and bushes that we had cut down to do get access to the house.

The first thought was to burn them, but I *think* it’s against the law for individuals to burn vegetation. The legislation prohibits anyone from burning “green waste”, but gives exceptions to those who live in rural areas where they are not collected and where there is not a dump. Here, we have a dump, but green waste is not collected. And the most convincing argument is that everyone else does it.
After weighing the pros and cons, we decided that burning everything was easier and would most importantly be much more fun.

fire one and fire two

After feeling like we were getting nowhere for about a week, it was awesome to see some sort of advancement. And no one said anything about the fires, so I think we’re in the clear.

the cleared terrace

We can now get back to digging, but we might also clear a bit more land … just to burn some more stuff.