A Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On...

Our house sits on a cliff and from our backyard you can see the whole city. Recently some new home construction has started down below us. Up until now it has mainly been just noisy as the graders have gone about making the land level, etc. Now they have started on the cliffside. This is mainly due to neighborhood meetings we have had with the developers over our concern about their development and whether it will block our view and whether they will make the cliff stable and able to withstand erosion. What they are doing is digging out the dirt, putting huge cement blocks in to make a wall, then putting some of the dirt back on top of the wall. To look at it, it looks very strong and stable, so I hope it is. But enduring the work process is something else. My house is going through many mini-earthquakes all day long. This has been going on for several weeks. For the past two days they have been next door below my house. It's kind of funny, at first I would think, "Sheesh! I can't stand this any longer!" Now I hardly pay attention anymore and the other morning I was so tired and decided to go back to bed for about an hour (I get up at 4am to teach a class at 6am). When I lay down I could feel the house shaking and could hear the roar of the engine and the beep-beep-beep of the machine (I have no idea why it beeps unless it is backing up?). I guess either I was really tired or the noises and shaking lulled me to sleep because I actually did fall asleep for at least 40 minutes or so. Next week they will probably get to my house. Each of my neighbor's fences have collapsed during the digging. We were going to put up a new fence but decided to wait until this construction was done - thank goodness. My husband and I are laying bets to how much of our backyard will also collapse due to the digging. One of the outcomes of the neighborhood meeting is that this construction company will restore our backyards and our fences. We'll see. All in the name of progress!