PLAYING WITH MUD

At 10am sharp, the concrete truck pulled into the driveway, starting a 4+ hour scramble to get the mixture of cement, sand, & rocks into the wall, and on the ground.   Coordinating with the driver by way of hand signals, he slowly inched the truck forward, while I tried to keep the chute over the wall.  Even with a hand trowel to redirect the flow of concrete, a lot of the mud found its way outside, instead of going inside the concrete blocks.

The only real way to keep the spillage to a minimum, would have been to hire a concrete pump truck, but that would have cost more than what went on the ground.  It took about 45 minutes to slowly fill each hole in the wall, and the driver thought that there was still enough left in the truck for my sidewalk project.

With the wall filled full of fresh concrete and rebar, it's strength went from almost nothing, to a true retaining structure, capable of holding back all of the fill dirt that will soon be in front of it.

I wanted to sink a series of bolts into the wet concrete, as a means for anchoring a metal fence that will eventually set on top of the wall.  However, by the time I got the sidewalk to a point where I could leave it, the concrete in the wall had already hardened way too much.  Plan B (there's always a plan B or C or.....) will be to anchor the fence by drilling into the wall at a later time.

The truck couldn't quite back up far enough to get the chute to the back of the walkway, so about 5 wheelbarrow loads were necessary.

 

By mid afternoon, I was done, and glad that it all went pretty much according to plan.  Today, I'll take the forms off the sidewalk, and start checking to see where I can find some fill dirt at a fairly reasonable price.  Once the area in front of the wall is filled in, then I can start thinking about framing up for the two 1'x48' foundations for the RV shade cover.  Oops, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  There's this little issue with Pima County that has to be resolved first!