A manure pit in the making

After over a year of planning, paperwork, and patience, we're finally starting to see physical progress on the construction of our manure pit.

The excavation crew has been at work for nearly a week now: the clearing and grubbing are done; the top soil was scraped off and piled out in the field; and the tile lines around the pit were finished this morning. Now they've started excavating and shaping the floor of the pit. If you look out the west window of the barn, you can actually see the makings of a manure pit. With only the paper plan to guide me, I had a hard time visualizing what the final design was going to look like — now I have a better idea.

We're hoping for this nice weather to continue so the crew can keep working. With another week or so of dry days, most of the dirt work will be done and we'll just have concrete, fencing, and minor details to finish up. Keep your fingers crossed for us. We are so looking forward to wrapping this project up and stamping it "done"!

We've learned a lot about project planning, design, and execution through this process. And a lot about working with the various agencies involved in permitting, designing, and cost-sharing manure storage systems. When this project is all said and done, we'll post our top tips for putting in manure pits (based on our experience).