Pouring the Foundation aka More Things Are Happening!

Quick but pivotal update tonight: we have achieved concrete. I may have jinxed myself with the last post on being almost done, as three days later we had a catastrophic collapse around 85% of the trench.

Now, I'm not going to say that I wish I had stuck to my guns and refused to compromise on my original plans. However, When 6-8 inches of mud has fallen into the bottom of a trench, it is significantly easier to clear it out when the rebar is only three inches high than when it is 24 inches high.

So I spent many uncomfortable weeks straddling an awkward metal cage, which is held together with sharp pointy wire. I lost about three gallons of blood in the process and ripped the crotch out of five pairs of jeans.

Being that we are rapidly approaching winter, I was afraid we would run out of appropriate weather for pouring concrete. I think we managed to hit the last warm snap of the season. Thanks, global warming! Thanks, El Nino!

This morning I was all set to get my daughter to school and come home to pour some concrete. I started this journey by stepping off the porch, rolling my ankle, and falling right on my face. I thought, oh no, a wonky ankle is going to totally fuck up my day.

Oh, but the Fuck-up Fairy wasn't done with me yet.
I drop off my kid, start heading back, my tire blew out, and I skidded into a ditch.

Mind you, this is the tire that I just replaced in May. This is also the one day I decided not to put on jeans and went out in my PJ bottoms. No one is going to see me, right?

Wrong. Everyone dropping their kid off to school that day got to see me in my jammies yelling at my tire in a ditch. C'est la vie.

So, Mom to the rescue (thanks, Mom!) I get dropped off just in time to do 2 hours worth of prep in 45 minutes. So much panic.

All the drama aside, it's done. We worked 13 yards of concrete into a 24 inch high,134 foot long footing before breakfast. Before coffee even.

Level up.

Here's a few photos of before and after. There was too much to do to take any "during" photos.

I am disappointed that Jack did not supervise us at all through the pour. The little snot slept through the whole thing. Oh well. Here's a photo of him snuggling his grumpy cat plushie anyway.

Now I can relax a bit. The next step is to build four courses of architectural blocks on top of this footing. I'm not going to have enough warm weather to get anything significant done on that front, so it's time to head to the garage for some wood working.