Digging in the dirt

Today I went with Perry, and his wife Mindy and his five-year-old son, McHale, back out to his property where we are going to build a slow-rate sand filter so that he will have potable water when he builds a house there. His property is at the very end of the road, and there is no chance of getting city water, nor is there a good place to drill a well. However, he has a small stream that is still flowing, even though it has been very dry here. [This is supposed to be the rainy season here, but it has been a month since we have had a good rain.]

I tried to measure the rate of flow in the stream today, timing how long it takes to fill a 5-liter water jug, and I estimate the flow rate to be about 4 gallons per minute. Given that the filter needs only 1-2 gallons per minute, we should be good to go.

However, when we took his backhoe up there today, we discovered [by almost getting it stuck], that there was a small water seep under the road near where we want to put the filter. So we dug a trench in the road to let the water drain, and let the ground dry out. We plan to go back next week with a truck load of gravel so that the water can drain without saturating all the dirt under the road. We will also begin constructing the water line leading to the filter. Here is a picture of Perry digging the trench, with his son McHale beside him on the backhoe.
Before we left this morning, I took a load of laundry over to the laundromat [not self-serve], and on the way back I took this picture of a poodle. I think that poodles are the most common type of dog in Ecuador, or at least in Cuenca.