2 men, 4 days and 7,620 lbs of concrete

Well, the last few days have been crazy. Ted (the best father-in-law in the world) and I drove into Alamogordo on Friday afternoon to sign the papers on the land and then scooted up the mountain to try and measure off the spots for the footers. It's a little different trying to level everything out when you have a 8 foot decline from the top of the building site to the bottom, but we joined intellects and got it done.

 

We rented a two man auger from Home Depot and only had about 12 hours until we had to drive down the mountain to return it. The auger quickly got nicknamed "The Beast"

She dug through that mountain soil ripping up small roots and rocks all the while tossing us like rag dolls. We just decided to hold on and enjoy the ride and after the first couple of holes, mastered the machine.

The mountain fought us on 3 dig spots. 2 had big roots that we have to cut out and unfortunately we didn't see it in the beginning, but a tree stump was smack dab in the middle of the third. Luckily, we made great friends with Dave Swope and he brought in the big guns to help us out.

 

Now let me tell you one thing about concrete....

it's friggin' heavy!

I purchased 127 of the 60 lb bags in order to get everything done. The problem was, each bag was handled many many times. Had to pick it up at Home Depot and put it in the truck. Had to take it off the truck and set in the staging area. Had to pick it up from the staging area and trek down the mountain to the second staging area (which it is not easy doing because gravity wants to take over). Then had to pick it up to dump it into the mixer.

I know for a fact that I've never worked harder in my life than I did on that mountain...but we got it done. And we're going to make the trip again this weekend to build the subfloor. Luckily, I've recruited another delusional soul to help out so things should be a little easier this go around.


 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy