Michael's parents had a beautiful house on a hill about 3 miles from here, which Michael and his dad built in the early 70s. It had a lovely walkout basement. They sold that house in the late 80s and decamped to Arizona. Then we had grandchildren for them to visit in the summertimes (we lived in St. Paul at the time) and they needed more than a mini-motor home. In the mid-90s, we went in together and bought this land and Michael helped Clyde build a 3 season cabin.

So when Clyde and Irene put a partial basement under their 3 season cabin (making a partial 4 season house), they decided to recreate the walkout basement, but without the convenient hillside.

We still have the mountain of dirt that came out to put in this door.

The problem with making a huge ditch leading up to a door is that it acts, well, like a ditch when it rains...only heading towards the house rather than away from it. Our decision to take the door out was put on the back burner until we realized that we will have to run the plumbing for the addition right past that door. We wisely hired the guy who built the basement to block in the door.

Today we put in a window...and if the plumbing runs in front of it, the light is still nice.

Michael will start backfilling the dirt to slope away from the house once we get the tractor running again.

Today we also put the stairs on our deck!

And as a final accomplishment (or maybe the first of many for the day), Michael trapped a second giant mama raccoon.