I called Randy the excavator this morning and told him I was coming up to Becida and I’d be available forever until he could meet me. He told me to call him when I got close and he’d try to make it out to my lot to take a look.
So three hours after I got out of bed, I was standing there telling the guy where I wanted my cabin to sit. It’s looking like I can get all my yard cleared of brush and stumps, my driveway installed, and the house site excavated for under $2000. He suggested I move my driveway over 50ish feet so he would not be working too close to the above-ground electrical box. It also made my driveway nearer to the house, shorter, and therefore cheaper. As we stood there evaluating it, he said, “I’ll dig anywhere ya want me too, as long as it ain’t over there where them people is buried.”
Apparently, there are graves on my lot! My cousin Paul told me that before I bought the place, and now a few other people have told me so too. There is an area where the ditch along the road is filled in supposedly near where someone’s buried. There is no grave marker and I’ve heard a different story from each person who knows about it as to whom is buried there. The tales vary from one grave to three, and most people say one was an infant. Another person told me it was a mother, child, and a one-armed plow driver.
I was a bit worried that the county might have a problem with me constructing a cabin in the area. I was thinking the highway engineer would wonder why I didn’t just put my driveway right where the ditch is filled in there. I asked Paul, how should I answer if the guy asks me why I don’t use that obvious spot there. He said, “Well, just tell him that’s not where you want it.” That seemed kind of flimsy to me since my original plan was for the driveway to be right next to the gravesite.
Just as Randy and I were finishing up, the engineer showed up, less than a day after I submitted my application! He turned on a rotating orange light above his cab, parked in the lane (there isn’t a shoulder), and lumbered over to us wearing brown overalls over a ratty, threadbare, gray T-shirt, topped off with an orange baseball cap. Randy greeted him and they were obviously friends, which I thought was certainly to my advantage. The guy looked where I had placed the driveway marker stake, turned to me and said, “Good thing you didn’t put that on top of those graves over there.”
I replied, “I guess there are no secrets in this place!”
Then Randy chimed in, “Not when you’ve been around here as long as we have,” and we all had a good laugh.
The engineer kind of scratched his head as we all pondered the fact that it’s pretty stupid to put in a culvert right next to where the whole ditch is filled in. But the engineer reasoned that on a really wet year, it could fill up between the two filled-in places and flood my land. He said at that point, it would be the county’s responsibility to deal with, so we decided to go with a culvert. After he and Randy talked for half an hour all about how weird the weather has been this year the engineer said, “OK, I’ll getcha a pipe. We’ll have it here in the next day or so.”
As we walked back to our trucks, I said to Randy, “Man, I’m glad he didn’t make a big deal about the gravesite.”
Randy replied, “Well, what could he do?” like the only possible option was to allow me to do whatever I please. I imagined to myself in other parts of the country where I sometimes reside, they might red tag my project, and charge me a million dollars to move graves or turn it into an unbuildable historic site. But I just smiled and said, “Yeah.”
I’ve been here four days and I’m amazed I’ve been able to get this far into the process so soon without prior coordination. I have no idea how soon Randy will be able to build my driveway and excavate, but the lot should be ready and legal to dig within two days!
I’ve been staying with Paul in Backus, but tomorrow I plan to head up to Becida and start staying there most of the time. The culvert will require a little bit of assembly, so I want to be there to do the work as soon as it arrives.
Also, I’m once again considering purchasing a house to move to my site. I want something about 20 by 24 feet with a loft above, and I found a house for sale for $3500 that almost meets those criteria exactly. It’s 24.5 feet by 22 feet plus has a little pop-out entry area. The floor plan isn’t as open as I’d like, but perhaps I could change that later. I’ll give a call in the morning and maybe go see it if it sounds good. If it’s as nice as it looks, it might be a really excellent value. Here is a picture.
I'd say there is definitely a one-armed plow driver buried there! That's just too fun :)
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