Hard Dig

Since we were building on a hill that's close to the South Mountain, there was a strong possibility that there would be a "Hard Dig," where the workers would have to use a jack hammer to break apart large rocks or granite; basically part of the mountain.  In the foreground, you can see the large orange jack hammer that attaches to the excavator.  Next to the jackhammer is a very large pile of rocks and dirt that came from the hard dig.  Fortunately, the jackhammer was able to do the job and the workers didn't have to resort to dynamite.

Just for reference, the orange part of that jackhammer is over 10 feet long!

Some of the Hard Dig Wall

Rocks

We can start to see the area where the excavator dug out for the foundation footer stem walls, leaving a large pile of rocks.  Further to the right, we can see where they cut into the neighbor's driveway to make way for our retaining wall where out driveway will go.  The neighbor's driveway was actually on our lot by a few feet, so the workers cut some of their driveway.