Our first accident

We're fine.  No one got hurt.  But, the truck that delivered the metal for our cellar walls had a pretty big problem:

That's part of the fuel pump that got jammed into the fuel tank.  Ugh!  The poor truck driver.  Since our street is not yet finished, there is a relatively large incline between the sidewalk and our road.  When the truck driver drove over the this incline, the heavy trailer filled with iron pressed down on the filter, broke it, and pushed it through the fuel tank.

Again, poor truck driver.  When I got home, this was the scene:

Of course, what I found out when I talked to Joern was that this scene remained unchanged for 6 hours today!  We walked down to talk to the truck driver.  He was so nice.  I guess after the incident, he contacted his boss, who contacted the mechanics they work with.  It took the mechanics 4 hours to get to Neckartailfingen, and another 2 hours to put a band-aid  on it, so that the driver could drive home.  The truck driver explained that he will never forget our construction, and will respectfully decline returning to our construction site for further deliveries.  He will recommend that a smaller truck complete further deliveries.  I feel really bad for this poor guy.

In other more successful news, the footers poured in the back and the front.  According to Joern, the trench for the footer in front of our house was deeper than I am tall.  Woah!

The builders also laid out some of the waste water piping:

Grrr, its time to quit working

Today marked yet another day on the site, and made me really sad that I don't get to see all the goings-on.  And, maybe a little bit jealous of Joern, who works 20 feet away from the site.
When I dropped Joern off at his parents' this morning, the excavator operator was busy smoothing down the ballast stones for the crane to sit atop.  Since our ground is kind of uneven anyway, plus the crane is so heavy, it needs extra support, ballast stones were placed underneath the crane (they also will be underneath our house.) 
During the day, the crane that was standing near our friend's new duplex construction, was dismantled and set up right next to our building lot!

Crane as it stood for months in front of our friend's new construction

 The crane being moved to us!

It seems hard to tell, but the crane is now at our lot!

After the crane was settled, which took quite a while, the workers returned to digging out the site.  Some fabric was laid down on top of the areas of the ground that did not need to be further dug out. 

The fabric is a special fabric that helps with the drainage system of the house.

After the fabric was laid, the digging recommenced.  First, two trenches were dug, along the east side of the house and along the north side.  These are the trenches for the footers.  One trench was even filled with concrete already.  These footers evenly dispirse the weight of the house, and needed to be especially deep to counter the force of the hill pushing against them.  The second footer trench will be filled tomorrow.

The trenches were also dug for the waste water pipes, electircity, and the pipes for the water supply.  The trenches are not finished, but here is how we left the site tonight: