Digger day

I lamented to Sacha yesterday afternoon that I didn't know how I would make it through the winter without succumbing to the temptation of extremely germy play options like indoor play parks and OMSI and such. "What will I doooooo with them?" I whined.

We had just spent the morning with a newish playgroup, ripping one of the members' houses to shreds and witnessing some difficult behavior from the other kids in attendance. "We're going to be in the house all winter loooooong..." I continued. Then, the chaos of the day began anew and I was distracted by other things.

Meanwhile, there has been this vacant lot next to our house for the last couple of years. We received a notification when Mateo was an infant that a house would be built there, but then the housing market tanked and nothing ever happened. And, by nothing, I mean NOTHING. The lot was overtaken by weeds that grew to be taller than Mateo.

Recently, a crew of men came and disassembled the fence that borders the alley next to our house, but left abruptly in the middle of the project. We think they were actually stealing the wood. The half-up fence added a charming element of, well, trashiness to the whole scene and finally pushed me over the edge into filing a complaint with the city. I submitted the form online two days ago, so I'm sure it hasn't even been processed yet, but nonetheless...

This morning, a huge digger showed up on our street. Then, a man in a car came to consult with the digger operators and rolled out a sheaf of papers that were clearly house plans. I know this because Mateo and Natalia and I were staring down at the scene from our window. Then, awhile later, the digger operator got into the digger and turned it on and proceeded to raze everything in the vacant lot. Weeds? Gone! Fence remants? Snapped like toothpicks! Overgrown blackberry vines? Crushed and hauled away. This thing will supposedly be here for two days, digging out the basement or foundation or whatever. Then, hopefully, a new house will be built!

All I can say is thank you to the universe for solving two of my problems in one fell swoop.

1. Kids in need of entertainment got a digger delivered to their door and the promise of a whole winter of home construction that we can watch from our window (How will they nap with all the banging and crashing, you ask? Let's not think about that right now...).

2. Adults in need of a vacant lot being cleaned up (and a nice, new house being built on it to improve the neighborhood and their home's value) are finally going to get some action. Wahoo!

Here are some photos.

Before:


After:


Enthralled kid and friend:


PS: I'm sure the city inspector for nuisance complaints will, in about 10 days, come out to do an inspection for our complaint and wonder what the heck I was all upset about!