Let the Problems Commence

Once we were working at the cabin site again, W wanted electricity as soon as possible. We were there when the power company came to set the pole at the end of the driveway. They got it started and down aways, and then everyone watched in amazement as the pole just started sinking. It just got shorter and shorter till the top was only a few feet above the ground. Ken W. had come over to see what was going on. Not much got past our new neighbor. Now he was delighted. I remember him bouncing around telling us, "I told you there was quicksand over here." I had never heard of underground quicksand and neither had the power company men. But, Ken convinced them that since the pole had stopped sinking, a narrow patch of quicksand was down there. He believed another pole set directly on top of that one could be set solidly. They crew went back to the company to consider with their bosses and some experts. In the end they did just what Ken suggested and put another pole directly on top of the first one. It's still there.

This caught the attention (word travels) of the road department. There was a nearby hole about 6-8 inches across near the edge of the road that they had been trying to fill for several years. Now they believed they knew why it kept coming back. We all learned a lot about quicksand when W and I started our log home on that property. The whole area on our side of the road was sandy where the CCC boys had planted trees.

Quicksand isn't "quick" unless water is flowing through it. Wet sand doesn't mean it's quicksand, unless the water is moving. All those natural spings feeding our creek were causing scattered spots of underground quicksand. It doesn't have to be a big patch, it can be just a few inches deep and wide, as long as there is a real good flow of water. If soil is present, the sand can't float in the water and there is no quicksand. Only by disturbing the area would we find the patches of quicksand. We'd already set the driveway and it was all solid. We dug out the basement/garage area and the equipment didn't sink anywhere, so we figured we were ok there too. The sand in our hill was pretty solid till it was disturbed. We didn't find any springs in the wall of sand we exposed in the garage/basement. We considered ourselves finally lucky and continued with our plans. I did check out the areas where springs came to the surface and I poked around. They all proved to be solid. There was enough topsoil to make it safe. We gradually lost our fear as we studied more about quicksand. It seemed to be only the swamp area where the quicksand came to the surface. And that was a long way from our log home. I named our new home Sand Hill Cabin, and even put that on the application for our address filed at the Post Office.

W was concerned about the sand in the hill pushing on our block wall. We didn't know if it would be as solid as soil or would tend to push against our foundation. So we used 12 inch block instead of 8 inch block. Then we spent a whole day with some friends filling the holes in the blocks with rods and concrete. The cement truck backed in as close as it could, then we had to carry buckets of cement to W who dumped and packed it down every block from the top. I was the only woman that day and carrying those heavy buckets was playing havoc with my head. It was my first indication that I may have taken on more then I was able to handle. The men didn't expect me to carry as much as they did and I did stop every time I had "the feeling" I'd learned would lead to fainting if I pushed it. By the end of the day, "the feeling" was constant, and I was getting scared.