View from the well, north of playground
April 2, 2003 This is from the location of the school's water supply. This panorama opens facing south.
April 25, 2003 Snow's gone.
September 1, 2003 Logging to clear the site has begun!
September 4, 2003 Looking to the north and east, you can see where the northern part of the campus is being cleared out. First the large ones that can become lumber and paper are removed, then the smaller ones and brush will be chipped up into mulch.
September 10, 2003 Lots of the trees are cleared away - the area around the well has been smoothed from grassy brush down to level dirt.
September 30, 2003 Now students at BOCES are arriving with their own logging equipment, to get real-world experience at the SIS site. Later, they'll also help out in grading the construction site and playfield.
October 11, 2003 The professional loggers are done, and have taken their equipment out. The BOCES students have a skidder and a Bobcat equipped with a stump grinder for more tree-removal practice.
October 24, 2003 An awesome fall day. All the equipment has gone home for the weekend. Soon the real heavy equipment will arrive to push the hills into the valleys, flattening out the site for the building to begin.
November 13, 2003 Okay, the heavy equipment is here. Two bulldozers and a trackhoe excavator are ready to start flattening things out. The log truck is parked where the foundation will be poured. The camera's vantage point (in the new playground) has to be lowered about six feet to get down to being level with the school.
November 20, 2003 They're baaaack... this time we have equipment and people to run it. For starters, they've pushed all the tree debris way off to the north, and have shoved the first few inches of topsoil into a pile for later landscaping. They've already taken the central southern hill down six or eight feet, where the bulldozer is behind the green pickup truck.
November 22, 2003 A 50 degree Saturday in late November? Sounds like an ideal day to drive a bulldozer or two around. We're trying to get the concrete in the ground before the first solid freeze of winter hits. All the above-ground construction can proceed through winter. Stakes and orange flags are starting to mark out the corners of the building.
November 24, 2003 The weather's still holding. Here the trenches for the concrete footings are being excavated - the west wall facing the playground is done, and they're moving clockwise around the building, about to start on the front (north) wall. Surveyors and orange spraypaint are everywhere.
November 26, 2003 The footing trenches are about half done, and the wooden forms for the concrete footings are going in.
November 28, 2003 The good weather is starting to disappear. Today we're getting showers, which makes the driveway a lot more muddy. The construction area is like brown beach sand, so the rain drains right through it. Some concrete block has been delivered for the foundation work, and the bulldozer operators are still at it.
December 1, 2003 Today you can see the new foundation wall starting at the northwest (nearest) corner, going east to the first front entrance, then disappearing at the main center entrance behind a pile of sand. The wooden tent structure is still in place over the west wall, though it's not as windy as it was a few days ago, so the rest of the block wall is being built without cover.
December 2, 2003 Amazing how a half-inch coating of snow can make a scene look so dreary. The concrete truck filled the footing forms yesterday afternoon, and the trench-diggers are back at work today.
March 2, 2004 Fast-forward a few months, and a few more feet of snow. Bulldozer tracks are replaced by rabbit and deer tracks. In a month, we'll be back to dirt and concrete.
March 30, 2004 The construction guys are eagerly awaiting the return of warmer weather, so they can get going on concrete. The north(front) and west walls are mostly done. There are concrete wall forms stacked up in the foreground. To the north of this point, you can see the gravel driveway winding through the woods to Route 29.
April 6, 2004 The weather is starting to level off toward spring temperatures. A few concrete workers are cleaning up the trenches where the weather has knocked dirt into the foundation area. The large dirt piles from excavation are being moved out of the center of the building space, before the eastern wall footing space is trenched.
April 19, 2004 Two large earthmovers are busy pushing back the boundaries of level dirt to the north and east, getting the treetops out of the way. Several new piles of concrete block along the south wall show that the foundation footings on the back of the building are done.
April 23, 2004 That new well pipe you see to the west has actually been here all along - but it was underground. The camera's location has been lowered about six feet, in preparation for flattening out the playground area.
April 27, 2004 More of the same - they're starting to work on the area north of the school that's going to become the parking lot.
April 30, 2004 The playground area and hill to the west are just about at the finished grade, but forestry work starts up again and covers the hill west of the playground with tree limbs. The top of the well pipe is about 10 feet above ground now, compared to 2 feet a year ago. Naturally, this will be cut shorter so it doesn't get in the way on the playground.
May 6, 2004 The hill to the west has been pushed back again, to provide a gentler slope up from the playground. A waste water system vent pipe is propped up in the near corner, where the kindergarten bathrooms will be. The bucketloader at the south wall is pouring crushed stone along the foundation for rainwater drainage.
May 14, 2004 The well pipe has been cut to ground level, and workers are installing the electrical wiring and water pipe from the well to the building in an 8-foot deep trench. Once the trench is filled back in, we'll be able to stand over the well again to take pictures here.
May 23, 2004 The area around the wellhead is still dug up, with a pile of dirt to the north. Sheets of insulation are stacked to the south, and you can see the building to the southeast. The utility/mechanical room is sticking out to the left/north side of the main building, with the orange and blue heating pipes and one black incoming water pipe from the well.
May 27, 2004 The roof makes it look a lot more like a building. To the left/north you can see the roof sticking out into the parking lot from the front door entryway. Yes, you'll be able to drive up to the front door and drop off your kids without them getting rained on. The building has hardly any windows to the north, since no sun will come in from that side. The bathrooms are also on the north wall at this end of the building.
June 16, 2004 The well area looks finished - the pipe is covered, and the ground around it is level again. Walls are covered with plastic from the inside as sheetrock goes up, though some ventilation holes have been cut to make working more comfortable.
July 12, 2004 More underground work is complete - the large green box to the north of the playground is the power transformer that will supply electricity to the building. To the right of that is one of the streetlight bases that will line the driveway and parking lot. The southern wall of the building is nearly completely covered with siding.
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