We were leaving to go up North. But first, Axel had to dig a trench.

You see, Axel has a project in the works - a shed, which he will work from. The concrete slab has been out back since before the first snow fell last fall. And we've just been waiting. And waiting. For more progress.

Axel hired a contractor, who we'll call Adam, to build the shed - a guy who lived across the street but moved soon after that fateful concrete slab got put in. Axel has been coordinating with him all winter and spring, until finally, one day in July, there was a banging on the kitchen door.

I didn't answer, obviously. I believe I'm technically a "geriatric millennial." I rarely even answer phone calls.

Then the pounding came at the front door, and I ducked out of sight. Last time I went to the door from an unexpected knock, it was a political canvasser.

Axel's phone started ringing, and we realized what was going on: It was Adam. "They're dropping off the lumber," he said. "I need your keys. I gotta move your car out of the garage. Right now."

And so it all began.

To defray the costs of the shed, Adam told Axel that he could dig the trench for the electrical wires himself. Said trench would go from the house to the garage, and from the garage to the shed.

Axel mentioned the trench to me on many occasions as an afterthought. "It shouldn't be too bad," he said as he browsed video game controllers on Amazon.

Two days before we were planning to leave for up North, Gamma was over hanging out with Little L and me. "I'm sorry, but Axel thinks he's going to dig a trench? All by himself?" She called Gampa to see if their Rototiller would be of help - it would not, as the digging it would do would not be contained to a foot wide. "Axel really thinks he's going to do this?" Gamma said, peering out the window at the grassy backyard.

Later that night I sent Gamma a photo - the trench was dug. Well, kind of. It was started. But from my calculations, it looked about a third of the way done, in just one night.

"I'm probably a sixth of the way done," Axel told me that afternoon.

"Wait, what? You're almost half way across the grass!" I looked at his wet t-shirt and dirt-caked gloves. Thank goodness I wasn't involved in this matter. I just hoped me could finish by Friday morning so we could leave.

"Oh, it's not just the grass, though," Axel pointed out. "It has to go from the house to the garage."

"Wait, so you have to go through the mulch?"

"Oh, yeah," Axel said, almost proud of how much work this was going to be.

"And what about where the air conditioner is?" I picked up a pair of Little L's dirty socks from the hallway.

"Have to dig under the concrete."

That evening I looked out the window to where Axel had been digging in the dark - I had to stay in while Little L was falling asleep; surely she would be asking for me to hand her some markers and a coloring sheet or Baby's dress or - anything that would help me avoid being out there doing that job.

There were voices out there. Adam was here, checking out Axel's work.

"Just making sure he's still standing," I said through the cracked screen.

"Making sure he's not six feet under?" Adam asked, laughing.

"Exactly," I said. Or two feet under. However deep the trench is.

The next day Little L and I went to meet her friend Little E at the beach. They floated Little L's plastic babies in the water and then sent her kiddo dolls down the huge slide at the playground, the two of them carefully walking back down three flights of steps to retrieve them at the bottom.

As we arrived home, Little L said, "Let's go see Papa's trench!"

It was growing. But not that much. There he was, knee-deep in a cool, muddy cavern. Little L hopped in instantly.

I took a step in, too. "This is hard," I said, balancing one foot in the trench and one out, since it wasn't wide enough to stand with both feet next to eat other. At this point I could see that my work in the trench would be integral to our family trip happening on schedule.

Axel had the hose; he was trying to loosen the dirt. Little L took her shoes and socks off and stomped in the mud.

And then the wasps came.

"Oh no, oh no, oh NOOOOO!" she said, scurrying out of the trench.

Axel kept chipping away at the stuck rock he had encountered. "That's why we don't want to use too much water. Mud wasps like mud."

Before long, Little L was a mess and she'd lost interest in helping. I was trying to shovel, one small bit at a time. "Mama, it looks like you're just frozen," Little L chided as I took a short break. "It looks like you aren't even doing anything."

Thanks, Little L.

Pssssscht. The neighbor's sprinkler went on in his backyard, and I thought it might be a good idea for Little L to go over to his yard and run through it. Axel suggested that we set up our sprinkler instead. "The lawn needs it anyway," he said.

Soon Little L was running through the sprinkler and wanted me to join her. "Sure, honey, I can come with you," I said, with a sigh to make it sound to Axel that I'd rather keep digging the trench than cool off. "Just give me five more minutes." I could make it five minutes, right?

Little L came up to my ear giving me the countdown. When she finally whispered, "Mama one minute until I turn back on the sprinkler and you can get wet, wet, wet!" I was thrilled. I was glad five minutes in her world were shorter than Central Standard Time.

Spoiler: we did get to go out of town. But just barely. The morning we were leaving, Axel got up and dug for two hours. But ultimately we left the trench unfinished. Axel came home before us and kept digging. Gamma knew what she was talking about - no trench is an easy trench to dig.

He was entrenched in the project. He was in the trench.

He was—well, you get the picture.