Some really exciting news! I woke up this morning and purchased our first company drill rig! This will definitely make the explorations more efficient than a hand auger and make it more predictable and reliable to get to the depth we need to get to on many projects without hiring an outside drilling contractor. This will streamline things and keep expenses down for clients with the efficiency and ability to keep some of the drilling exploration internal without having to hire it out. This D55 gas powered drill rig comes with 23 feet of drill rod and a bucket auger and solid stem auger bit. It is powered by a gas engine with a 1200 lb winch. There is still a time and place for a real driller because they are better equipped to deal with caving soil conditions and groundwater and deeper drilling. But this will get the job done for us on a lot of the routine work.
Since we are getting into the busy summer real estate season, I wanted to highlight that we provide geotechincal special home inspection services locally and have done quite a number of these now.
Sometimes it has been triggered by the home inspector recommending a professional when there is evidence of home settlement or cracks and leaks, or a steep slope that is a concern for the overall safety of the home and may need repair to mitigate.
I have connections to contractors that can then assist in providing a ballpark estimate for the work needed so that it can be negotiated toward the purchase price. Mostly we have done these for buyers but a few times for the current owner as well.

Just wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that we now accept all major credit cards including American Express. I can just take the card information over the phone and process the payment. So if you been having trouble coming up with the cash to get a project done then we do have the ability to take this form of payment now.
Also I should let everyone know that we are definitely fully operational with all of the safety and other provisions in place to operate with any COVID restrictions you may have in your county or city.
We did some EPA falling head infiltration testing yesterday in Steilacoom. Very thankful that it was rain free most of the day. We invested in some portable water jugs for this today that worked really well, so we will definitely find use for those in the future on other projects. The EPA falling head test does not require much water compared to small PIT tests. Nice view from this site as well, which improved throughout the day.
How do you get into a plant and garden nursery to drill an exploration boring at the top of a steep slope? Well this is one way. After they got through this they also snaked their way through rows of plants to where we wanted to drill. Kudos to Geologic Drilling for helping to make this happen.
Had an interesting mishap today at a site when a down tree knocked down a power line early in the morning very close to where we were trying to get started doing infiltration testing for the day. For a brief period my workers were trapped there including my geologist that had just dropped by for a moment on her way to another site.
Then once the lines were cleared and we could get in and out the power was still not on yet, and the issue became that we could not start the infiltration testing since we were relying on using the water from the existing house, and that was on an electric pump with well water. My workers waited and then pushed on late into the night to get the field work done. Small PIT infiltration testing can take about 9 hours. We didn't get started until the power came back on at roughly 2 pm and finally left the site at around 11:30 pm.
Very long day and I am grateful for the safety of my talented workers, their courage, and their perseverance to get the job done despite these adverse conditions today.
Quick little video of the new drill in action. We are still perfecting the use of it and the new role that it will serve. Some sites will always have to be hand augered. But appropriate use of this new tool on the right site could definitely make exploration more efficient and less manual labor intensive.
We have had some success with the use of our new drilling machine, but also in the course of trying to utilize it have learned quite a few improvements to be made to make it work even better. We found that actually our hand auger equipment and the bucket tube sampler that came with that work much better than the bucket tube sampler that came with the new machine. So we made some modifications to the motor drive in order to connect our hand auger to it. We also ordered new 10 inch and 4 inch auger bits. Also replacement of some bits and pieces, including a new winch and pulley system. Im pretty excited about these improvements because we should he able to utilize it more effectively and more often as it was intended to be.
The field crew had a good show yesterday at a site near Shelton where a whale decided to hang out only about 100 feet offshore almost the entire time they were digging exploration borings. It actually started out a few properties down and then came closer throughout the time they were there. Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to be on-site when these things happen.
Some exciting news to share today. With the growth of the business, I found it necessary to finally invest in the online Quickbooks platform to streamline my accounting financials, tax preparation, and project invoicing. What does this mean for the client? Up till now the only way to pay by credit card is to call me with a card number and enter it by hand. With this new change, for the first time ever at Mud Bay the invoicing will be payable with a point and click online payment transaction processed through the Quickbooks invoicing system. This will be way more convenient for our clients to pay the invoice at their convenience, and timesaving for us as well having the payments done electronically. We will still always continue to accept a payment by check in the mail to the company address if that is your preferred method of payment.
