[21twelve]

I rented a house that the farmer’s grandfather had built. I mentioned the cool bench seat along the one side of the dining room wall that was built into the house.

“Yeah - there’s a big rock there. My grandfather hand dug this all - but he gave up on that rock. Put the bench in to cover it up!”

[blackdog]

I knew a family from Estonia that bought a ranch house down the street from us. The family didn't like the concept of a crawl space. They hand dug with five gallon buckets a twelve foot deep basement under the house. They were under the foundation footings and used rebar and hand mixed concrete to form and pour deeper footings and walls.

It took them four years of hand digging after work each night for usually three to four hours at a time.

Once they got their basement they had a place to store their home grown produce, brine cured meats, etc.... and I suppose in the back of their minds, hide from governments gone wrong.