Thursday, September 4, 2008

Ball Buster

Absolutely beautiful sunrise this morning...not a cloud in the sky. Since I had already prepared the forms and gathered the aggregate - I jumped in early on the task at hand. It took 4 hours to fill the first level of my battery house walls. Started warming up out there after about an hour so I donned a head dress using an old tshirt to keep the sun off and suck up the sweat. 54 shovel loads of clay, 24 shovel loads of sand, 12 shovel loads of portland cement, and 20 gallons of water later I was done with the first of 4 layers to complete my battery house. Boy I sure am glad I chose not to build my little house this way...let's just say it was a rather labor intensive morning.

When I was about half way done, my neighbor Capt. Kirk drove up...WITH A BLOCK OF ICE FOR ME! In fact - it had been suggested and purchased by my other neighbor who had come out empty handed last week when I was swamped in. Both neighbors get a gold star. Needless to say, I now knew that my road was passable so I took a quick sponge bath and headed south for some supplies while I had the chance.

Got back home around 4:30 and was beat. Took some time before making dinner to sit and admire the days labor. Hard work sure does suck while your doing it, but having gone through it and admiring the accomplishment sure makes for a satisfying day - and its great to think I get to go through this 3 more days to finish the walls because it means 3 more very satisfying days. Amen, brother!

1 comment:

bigfoot567 said...

John: Is this a slip-form technique you are using? My concrete mind says this could use a hunk of rebar vertically every 12" or so along this top of the rammed dirt, but not long enough to extend above the next form level so as not to interfere with your pipe roller. (maybe that's already part of the plan) I'm trying to learn here and not advising, just inquiring as an eager student as you progress. Again, you always do impeccable work and I admire your neatness and pre-planning. Hope to get by to see you on my next trip to TR. BM in DFW.