Pond Mucking + Giant Water scorpion + Excavator

Stan: We're getting dirty today. 

Stan: Alright, guys. It's a full day today. We're going to be mucking out the stinkiest, nastiest pond you can imagine, and then by the end of the video, my son somehow manages to fall into it, which is completely awesome. We're also going to be talking about pricing jobs, how to actually do a job like you're gonna see today. So, without wasting anymore time. Let's do this thing.

Stan: "Hey Elliot, come pick this up." 

Elliot: What is it? 

Stan: It's a water scorpion.

Elliot: How do you pick it up?

Stan: Very, very carefully, 'cause if they actually sting you, it'll turn your flesh inside out.

Elliot: Yeah, so I'll film, you can pick it up. How's that for a deal?

Stan: Okay, so the problem is, when you let me pick it up, let me hold the camera here real quick. Hey Tim, can you hold this camera? I want to show Elliot something with the water scorpion. So Elliot didn't have the nads to pick up a water scorpion. 

Elliot: That's correct.

Stan: He told me to pick it up. The problem then is, I get to ...

Elliot: Stan, I'm going to like, friking jump on your rhino-lined car! 

Stan: [inaudible 00:02:33]

Tim: That's a water scorpion huh?

Stan: It's a water scorpion. 

Elliot: Does it actually turn your flesh...

Stan: Inside out. It does. They're actually really dangerous. 

Elliot: You little jerk. Such a turd, Stan. 

Stan: Who's a good water scorpion? Who's a good water scorpion? You're a good water scorpion. Yes, you are, oh yes, you are. 

Tim: Those things are dangerous?

Stan: Yeah, they are.

Tim: What do they got that's dangerous about 'em.

Elliot: Supposedly, they'll turn your flesh inside out.

Stan: Okay so we're here to, besides chase Elliott with water scorpions. That was actually really fun.

Tim: He wouldn't dare chase Zander 'cause he'd stop filming for him. 

Stan: Alright, what do we gotta do on this job site?

Tim: Fixin' a rip rap over there, adding some over here and mucking out the edges because the sediment that got washed in from the parking lot, so we're just gonna go around the two edges here, muck it out.

Stan: I see. Is that your rip rap Tim?

Tim: That's not rip rap. That's just some extra stuff I don't need in piles. John can come pick that up.

Stan: Any of that from the Bayport job?

Tim: Nah, North [Holmes 00:04:12] job.

Elliot: Yeah, you're a couple jobs behind there Stan. I don't know where the key is but I opened everything else up.

Tim: It'd be right under here.

Elliot: Then I'm blind 'cause I didn't see it. I didn't see it under here, I didn't see it in the little cubby.

Stan: Did you look behind the seat?

Elliot: I did look behind the seat. Look in the engine compartment though.

Stan: Or in the glove compartment or above ...

Elliot: It's not in here.

Stan: Okay. Our policy is we always leave a key on the machine 'cause if a guy brings it home and then that guy runs late or that guy calls in sick or...

Tim: There's always one guy that leaves it in a different spot than everybody else.

Elliot: You know that's why codes are nice. Everybody can know a code. 

Stan: Yeah, that's why I buy my machines with codes. Not 'cause of the extra security, it's just 'cause then nobody can have this problem.

Elliot: Honestly, I'm not sure that it is more secure.

Stan: This is a clay bottom pond. Now, our job is to go in just to remove the sediment that washed in from the parking lot, but we've got to be very careful that we don't remove too much material. Because it's a clay bottom pond, it also means that it could have a thick layer of clay, well could, actually it does have a thick layer of clay. Could be anywhere from 12 inches to four or five feet deep. We don't know how much clay is on the bottom of this pond. But if we go through that clay layer, we could end up draining all the pond into the ground water basin below. What you're going to see Tim is doing, is he is literally just using his bucket to feel for the hard bottom. He's trying to differentiate between the muck that's washed in and then the clay that's down below. He's using that bucket to feel his way down and in. Hitting the clay, he's going to start removing that extra material that's on top of it, carefully skimming it out, but preserving the clay down below.

Stan: Boy, that was a long explanation for that.

Stan: [inaudible 00:07:02] sediment and stuff on top. When you're doing this, are you looking for the different layers in it right now?

Tim: Tryin' to find them but it's all pretty muddy [inaudible 00:07:18].

Stan: I see you're just skimmin' so you're kinda going by feel to try to...

Tim: More to keep the edge nice than anything else. It's not too drop off but sounds like the owner of the place just wanted to make sure that his ponds not filled with sediment. Fuzzy on how deep you're going there. 

Stan: How did you bid this?

Tim: Just figured two loads of material out roughly and I think it's about a day and a half of work and about three grand. Think that's enough? How would you bid it?

Stan: No, there's a lot of different ways you could skin a cat so to speak.

Tim: Don't know how I did it honestly, but it's three grand for a few days of work. Not much is here. Just seed and some loading fabric. I don't know. 

Tim: I can feel the bottom. Right there is bottom. Did any of that look like sediment to you from the parking lot?

Stan: No. Nah, this looks like clay bottom.

Stan: This brings us to the next phase of the excavation and that's hand locating all of the power lines. That includes electric, gas, phone and cable are usually pretty easy because their right at the surface. Electric and gas are usually buried anywhere from 12 inches to two feet below the surface and if we catch one of those with just the tooth of an excavator bucket, it could cause big damage. What we've gotta do is we've gotta hand dig down and expose those lines so that we can get a visual cue, we know where they're at and that way that tells us how safe we are to dig in that area. Technically, you're not supposed to use power tools to dig over or around those lines so we always hand excavate to find 'em before we start working around 'em.

Elliot: Lost your rubble?

Stan: "So you're looking for utilities, right?"

Elliot: Correct. There's a line there, it's running somewhere in here. I found the base from the parking lot but I haven't found any plugs yet.

Stan: You wanna dig at least a foot and a half, 18 inches to two feet below where we would potentially be excavating. We're gonna to be digging down six inches in this area right through here...

Elliot: Right, six inches, I'd wanna be, if you want 18 to two feet, so I'd wanna be like 30 inches down.

Stan: 30 inches down and then a trench across. Not just in one spot because if you miss this area over here and we find it with the tooth of an excavator that could be a big problem.

Elliot: How wide? When we dug the one in St. Paul, I think we did three feet this way across the line, or where we thought the line would be. How wide would you go?

Stan: I would go to the edge of the pond, so the width of our excavation area.

Stan: So you couldn't hear it, but off camera Elliot asked me what I would do different if I was running the machine and not Tim. Here's my answer. Just like Tim's doing it, 'cept I wouldn't be as technical and detailed as he is. That's why he has almost zero complaints on his projects. 20 some years of running jobs, probably installing 15-20 million dollars worth of projects, he's got zero complaints. Yup. That's why I don't question him. In fact, he makes me question me. Yeah, he obviously questions himself over and over again. He second guesses every damn decision he makes which takes up a lot more time than what he needs to. It is, and it's also the reason why I choose him to be my business partner. 

Stan: Will you quit frikin hitting me in the back of the neck you stupid bastard.

Elliot: Did you know it was me the whole time?

Stan: No! I didn't know it was you the whole time. I kept feeling a bug crawling on my neck and I'm like AAAAGGH! Homeschooled kid.

Elliot: [inaudible 00:14:19] homeschool kid.

Stan: Homeschool kids having some homeschool fun. I'm gonna tell your teacher, principal slash mom.

Stan: Once Tim gets a feel for where the pond bottom actually is, he calls a dump truck in and starts loading the muck out, hauling it away. Now one of the things you're gonna notice is that he actually builds a damn in the back of the truck so the mucky, watery stuff can't flow out through the tailgate. We're allowed to haul the muck out, but we're not allowed to dump it on the road as we're driving down the streets.

Stan: C'mon Elliot! C'mon Bud! 

Elliot: [inaudible 00:16:17]

Stan: Less of the vegetation we can tear up the better.

Elliot: [inaudible 00:16:22]

Tim: Eight inches down is the electric goin' through here.

Stan: It's only eight inches deep?

Tim: Over there...

Elliot: It changes 'cause the elevation. It's probably 18 over there.

Stan: Did you find it?

Elliot: Yeah

Stan: You already filled it in.

Elliot: Yeah. It's 18 over there and ten here.

Stan: We made the right call by going three feet, right?

Elliot: Yup.

Tim: What do you mean going three feet?

Stan: He wanted to know how deep to go.

Tim: Oh yeah. Then we had it over here and we're diggin', diggin', diggin', diggin', and Elliot's like "It must go way deep." I'm like, let's go up to the...

Elliot: You moved it about four inches and we found it right away.

Tim: Here it was, about eight inches down, so we woulda.

Elliot: We were probably this far down and he moves it over four inches and boom! Right at the top.

Tim: He woulda started digging here thinkin' you're not gonna hurt it with a rock but you just gotta dig it out and make sure you find it.

Stan: Here is the finished rip rap spillway. That's all been dug out, it's been dug down and you can see where they got the grade set. Got enough rip rap left over to touch up the other spillway just to make it look good. Part of this spillway, you can see the fabric below it, that's to keep the sediment from washing up underneath it.

Stan: Alright guys, I gotta actually got back to the hospital. My daughter had her wisdom teeth pulled out and it didn't go the way they wanted to. It got infected and then her face swelled up and her throat swelled up and now they're doing an emergency surgery on it. I just had to stop buy and check on the job. That's why it's bring a kid to...God.

Tim: What're you doin?

Stan's Son: I fell in there. At least I didn't fall on my butt, but I fell in there with my legs. I didn't fall all the way in there. This foot got stuck...

Stan: How do you fall. You had this giant parking lot...

Stan's Son: I was checking stuff out and I went in there and I wanted to see, hey!

Elliot: My curious.

Stan: We're all curious how you could manage to fall into the only mud...

Stan's Son: At least this thing didn't get dirty at all 'cause...

Stan: Hey, smell it once, 'cause it stinks. That mud stinks.

Stan's Son: It doesn't smell like anything. Hey, do you want to smell it?

Stan: No!

Stan's Son: I thought you wanted to smell it. What?

Stan: I'm going to the hospital with you to get your sister.

Stan's Son: I've gotta go back and knock of my feet.

Stan: Get out of here stink pouch. I'm not taking you anywhere.

Stan's Son: Yeah! Hey, you drove all the way over here.

Elliot: Hey, do you want to borrow my truck? He can ride in the back.

Stan: Actually, I think I throw him all the way in the pond, it'll wash him off.

Elliot: Yeah, Yeah!

Stan's Son: It's a little grey, I don't...

Elliot: That'll probably hurt that cast and you paid good money for that thing.

Stan's Son: Actually, this is waterproof so

Elliot: Perfect! We'll just throw you right in. Hey, bring me up some more.

Stan: God, get away from me! Don't go in the car that way! You got mud on your butt.

Stan's Son: I'm gonna go in the car!

Stan: Instead of going back to the hospital, I guess...

Stan's Son: Oh, did get muddy on the back, what?! Oh just right there, I'm good. What? It's just my feet and my hand, that's it.

Stan: I have no clue how you can manage to fall into...

Stan's Son: It's right there, see that?

Stan: I know! How do you fall into that?

Stan's Son: I put one foot on there and I put the other one in and then my foot sunk in there. I couldn't get my croc out. I'm getting in. I'm sorry.

Stan: You're not getting in.

Stan's Son: You better hurry up and lock it. Uh-oh. What happened?

Stan: Don't you sit, here, let's see if I got somethin' for you to sit on.

Stan's Son: No, dude, my shirt is not dirty 'cept for this part so I'm good to go on sitting on it.

Stan: Oh, look, I've got a chainsaw back here. I wondered where that went. Seriously?

Stan's Son: It's only my feet you're gonna have to wash in this car and my hand.

Stan: Oh gosh. Alright, wish I could stay but I gotta get to the hospital.

Stan: You got that water scorpion still?

Elliot: Yeah, it's over by my truck.

Tim: I told him, "If you're a man, you'll put it down the front of your pants and just let it crawl around for a little bit." He wouldn't do it.