We have been struggling with the excavation part of the project. We have run into quite a bit of water seepage which has been causing the dirt to sluff off into our work area. Lots of mud as well. I think we have cut the bank back far enough now and added a plywood barrier for the dirt to fall against. Also had to cut our real big tree down, something we did not want to do. Fortunately it fell the direction we wanted it to.