PLAYING WITH MUD

When it's mixed with water, it kind of looks like mud, but the proper name is concrete.  The one thing about this miraculous mud, is the fact that it knows no hours or minutes.  It dries on it's own schedule, and it you're not prepared to stay with it, what you end up with may not be what you intended.

Returning about mid day from Lowes (I should own Lowes stock), with 140 feet of half inch rebar, 30 sacks of premixed concrete, and 20 blocks, I started working on the foundation for the "small wall".  With 2 rows of rebar inside the frame, I began the routine of dumping 2 bags at a time into my cement mixer.  From the mixer, into the wheelbarrow, then into the foundation frame, was the sequence for the next several hours.  When the concrete had dried sufficiently, I layed the first row of block, with vertical rebar pounded through the concrete, into the ground.

By the time I had mixed the last 2 bags of concrete, the sun was setting, and I had just about run out of time.   I was able however, to get 31 feet of concrete & block on the ground before darkness became the dominant player.  I've got about 17 feet to go, and the footing, with the first row of block will be finished.  That should be completed by the end of today.

Patty starts her latest travel adventure today with a flight from Tucson to Phoenix to Fresno.  Nancy will pick her up in Fresno, then the two of them depart from San Francisco, for 2 weeks in Costa Rica, leaving S.F. on the 4th.  They have to be in Sonora, CA at 4:45am on the 4th, for the bus ride to the airport.  I'm an early riser, but that's definitely what I call "O dark thirty".  I'll be home alone with the new kitty, and lots of work to do.  Maybe I should temporarily re title the blog - "Home Improvement By Chance".