Oh man...
I hope that one that you carved is the one that tossed you, even though it's not her fault the ground was soft!
The wife said it's not your fault, but I have a feeling she's now gonna have her own theories as to why they call it white widow.
When working on bare earth on a ladder, it's good to throw a piece of plywood down to sit the ladder on top of, just in case of soft spots. If the wife says anything, just do that and say you learned from your mistake and will now use the plywood when it's ladder time.
It's all compromise, my friend. During my last grow, we got helicopters flying over the house maybe 20 feet above the tree line and stopping over the two locations in the yard that I had plants, sitting for about 2-3 minutes, then going off on the rest of patrol . Needless to say the wife was not happy about this, and it freaked me the hell out too.
She wouldn't let me grow this year unless I did something different, so this year I surrounded the plants with bean plants for camo, and also because the bean plants will put more nitrogen into the soil. I'm also keeping them short with a bit of strategic LST. Hoping they don't stand out this year like they did a couple years ago.