Add to my list of life accomplishments: I have now dug and installed a septic tank. For the dog. Because I'd rather drop his craps in a hole in the ground than collect them in a bag with which to insult our garbagemen.

So it's a small contraption, requiring a hole about two feet in each dimension. Just a leisurely poke in the soil, I thought, but digging down two feet when the hole is too small to let you down there with the dirt you're extracting is hard on the back. And the cubic volume of dirt extracted surely was a surprise. Thanks to neighbors for letting me borrow their wheelbarrow.

And thanks to Boris, the Dog-faced Boy, for his occasional scratching at the edge of the hole. No digging, boy!

We shall see if it was all a waste of time and the tank digests nothing and only burps a foul miasma of congealed dog feces, rendering our backyard uninhabitable and my sore back a useless martyrdom to the dog's needs.