GARAGE STEP 2 - CONCRETE

At 6 am, the concrete crew arrived at the house, well before the days first light.  In fact, they were using the headlights of a couple of their trucks to start getting ready for the first concrete truck, which was due to arrive at 6:30 am.  The sequence of photos shows the progress in pouring 52 yards of concrete, that came in 5 trucks.  Each truck was capable of carrying 11 yards maximum.  At a little over $100 a yard, the concrete alone was well over $5,000.

Before the first truck arrived (pictured above), the forms were broken at the front of the garage, allowing the trucks to go all the way to the back for the pour.  The alternative was wheelbarrows, which would have taken forever.  When the concrete on the ground got nearer to the front, the forms were replaced, and the pour continued, eventually, all the way around the front of the house.

 

 At the back, the footings were almost 3 feet deep, and the first truck didn't have enough concrete to complete the foundation around the perimeter.

In order for the trucks to back up through the front foundation trench, a lot of lumber was placed in the hole, making a temporary bridge.  The first 3 trucks arrived one right after the other, then the pace slowed a little bit for the last 2 trucks.  By 9:30 am, all of the concrete was on the ground.

The many phases of finishing concrete takes awhile, and one of the keys is to have enough people to do the job.  When this much mud is going on the ground, there's only a limited amount of time before the material is unworkable.   There were 7 guys on this crew, and the pace was pretty much non stop until about noon.

When the front apron/ramp was finished, first the sidewalk, then the patio in front of the house was the next area for concrete.  This section went quite a bit faster, as there was no deep footings to pour.
By 2 pm, the garage slab, the walkway, and the patio was finished.  The forms had been removed, and the job was done.

 When the first batch of concrete was going into the rear foundation, the forms started to blow out, causing some emergency bracing, and re-alignment of the top form.

The finished project is a 32' x 47' slab for the garage, and a 32' x 17' ramp, or apron in front of the garage.  In front of the house, the patio area is approx. 12' x 40', and the sidewalk is about 30' feet long, tying into the ramp in front of the garage.

 
This second phase of construction, on the way to a garage/shop is now done, and the crew did an excellent job.  I gave the leader some extra money, and bought some beer for the guys when the job was finished.  I've done my share of concrete jobs over the years, and it's not easy work. 

Next step is delivery of the lumber on Monday, when framing is supposed to start.  The trusses will be here Tuesday, and we should have an enclosure by Wednesday.  Things are finally moving a a pretty good pace.

DISASTER STRIKES

 The concrete crew finished framing the perimeter, and had all of the rebar in the footings by mid day.  When they left, Patty and I went into town for a couple of hours, then returned home around 2pm.

It's hard to see in the first two pictures, but at the end of the ramp leading up to the garage doors, and the front of what will be the new building,  the grade (dirt) is higher than the soon to be concrete.  I started knocking down the high spot, and did so for about an hour, moving the dirt over next to the driveway.  Then, all of a sudden, when I had some pressure on the hydraulic system, using the backhoe bucket to pull dirt toward the tractor, I heard a loud hissing sound, as liquid started spraying on my left leg.  What the heck?  With no pressure on the backhoe, or the front loader, everything seemed to be fine.  As soon as I had any kind of resistance on the hydraulic system, I had hydraulic fluid spraying everywhere.  Not good, especially since I was right in the middle of a project to smooth out the the area in front of the garage, and where the concrete trucks will be backing up, starting at 6:30 this morning.

I smoothed out the area as best I could, then moved the tractor around to the back of the house, and nearer to my toolbox in the motor home.  After I started removing shrouds, and gear box covers, I discovered that one of the main hydraulic lines had been rubbing against the tractor frame, and it had finally worn all the way through.  Getting to the hose was a bit tricky, but after removing more stuff, like a heavy skid plate, I was able to get the ruptured hose off.

A quick call to the Kubota Tractor Dealer didn't offer much satisfaction, as they did not have the hose in stock, and would have to order it.  Their fee of $175 to pick up & deliver, plus parts & labor to repair, not to mention the time frame to order the new hose, left that option as almost non existent.  There's no doubt that having the dealer pick up and fix the tractor, would probably have cost at least $500, and probably a lot more.  The dealer did give me the name of a company that would be able to make a new hose, if I could take them the old one.

 

 The old hose is shown, half disconnected from the tractor.

A little before 4pm, I was on the way into town with the old hose.  By 5pm, I was on the way back to the ranch, with a brand new hydraulic hose, with new fittings.  Now, I was faced with the quickly approaching darkness, and as things usually go, it's always much easier to take something apart, than put it back together.  Reattaching the hose to the hydraulic pump was a son-of-a-#@%&*, but I finally got er done, and the rest of the re-assembly was pretty straight forward.  By 7pm, working with two flashlights, I finished the project, and the tractor will be ready to go back to work today.

Total cost of the repair was $57.20 for the new hose, and some gas to go into town.  That part of  the disaster remedy felt pretty good, but the old muscles and body aren't feeling so good this morning.
Now, the last challenge will be, to not have any leaks when I fire up the machine, because I sure don't feel like going through this again, at least not for awhile!

A sample of the hydraulic fluid mess, which sprayed all over the tractor, and me.

At 6:30 am, the concrete trucks will start arriving, and there should be about 6 or 7 of them.  This garage and patio project is going to take somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 yards of concrete, and this will be a big hurdle to get past.  Next step will be an actual structure.

GARAGE STEP 1 - EXCAVATION

Up again at 4 something, as we prepared to get Laila ready for school.  The only difference yesterday morning, was that Dad was picking her up, relieving us from making the 1 hour round trip. 

The concrete crew showed up at first light, and started the long process of moving, and leveling dirt, in preparation for placing the concrete forms.  There are two projects - a concrete patio in front of the house, and a 32' x 47' garage next to the house. 

The initial crew of 3, became a work force of 5, around the noon hour.  After an awful lot of dirt had been moved around, and the foundation footings around the perimeter of the garage had been dug, the crew started framing up for the slab pour tomorrow.  There was some discussion about possibly pouring the front patio today, but nothing definite.

With temperatures in the mid 80's, the weather was warm, but not excessively hot for these guys, who spent a lot of the day behind a shovel.  When the front patio is done, and the concrete has dried for a few days, the patio/walkway cover will start to get built.  The main purpose for this addition is to shield the front of the house from the direct afternoon sun, and provide some shade for the new patio area.
 

By mid afternoon, just about everything was framed up, and leveled.  Then, the rebar started going into the footings around the outside of the soon to be solid piece of concrete.    When the sun started to disappear in the western sky, the crew called it a day, vowing to be back this morning, as soon as the sun starts to reappear.

I spent most of the day outside watching these guys, and making a few adjustments, as work progressed.  Initially, there was only going to be a 3 foot ramp in front of the garage, but when I saw how close the sidewalk in front of the house was to the front of the garage, I added another 14 feet to the ramp, and the two will now tie together.

 

 Digging the foundation footings around the perimeter of the garage.

The first of 3 county inspections is set for sometime today, with the purpose of making sure the footings, and rebar is  correct.  The second inspection will occur prior to the roof going on, and the third inspection is the final check, when everything is done.

Today, the last forms for the ramp in front of the garage will be set, and the last of the rebar will go into the foundation.  By mid day, everything should be ready for some grey mud, and this first step for a new garage will be done.

A NEW TRENCH & BALLET

Now, that's quite a combination for a blog post.  Digging ditches with a backhoe, and the classical human art form of Ballet.  Let me explain......... Our day started with doing all of the necessary things required, in order to get a 7 year old ready for the school day.  I was up at 4am, Patty at 5am, and it was non-stop until we all piled into the truck for the 35 minute drive to Laila's private school.

After dropping Laila off at school, we stopped at the Civano Nursery, getting a few ideas for future landscaping  at the Chance Ranch.  Once we were back home, I fired up the tractor, and dug another trench for irrigation, and water pipes.  This one takes water out to the island in the middle of the circular driveway.  Right now that area is all cactus and desert plants, but eventually, there's going to be other vegetation that will require a little more water than what Mother Nature provides.

About mid day, the cement contractor unloaded his backhoe for the early, this morning start of excavation for the the new garage.  I took the picture to show the difference in size between a full size backhoe, and my compact Kubota.  

With my new landscaping project completed, we were back at Laila's school when she got out of class at 2:30pm.  From there, we drove directly to Laila's ballet dance academy, where we discovered that the 3pm start time that we had been told was incorrect.  Her one hour ballet instruction actually started at 3:30pm.  I won't mention any names Dad, as Grandpa and Laila passed the extra half hour, playing a game of "I see something you don't see".

When Laila's class started at 3:30, we enjoyed watching Laila and the other 2 girls go through all kinds of movements, related to Ballet Dancing.  Some one's attention could be a little more focused, but in her defense, all 3 girls had several periods of distraction.

At 4:30, we headed home, with a quick stop at the grocery store.  Grandpa BBQ'd some burgers, and by the time Laila had done her homework, read to Grandma for about 15 minutes, and had her bath, we hit the 7pm bedtime benchmark, right on time.  In the motor home, we're not quite ready for bed at 7, so we put Laila in our bed for a couple of hours, then move her to the sofa when we are ready to call it a day.

Yes, Patty and I have been through all of this. x 3 boys, many years ago.  It's easy to forget how much is involved in the raising of children, and how centered most everything is around their world.  The difference now, is that we get to temporarily devote our energy to this precious little girl, and cherish every moment of  the time we get to spend with her.  When it's time for her to return to Mom & Dad, it's time for us to take a deep breath, and recharge our batteries for the next visit.

NEW SHOES

The original "flip flop" girl, would be content wearing one her many pairs of beachwear sandals, just about year round.  In Southern Arizona, that would be very doable, however, her school doesn't allow open toed shoes, and Grandpa & Grandma decided that a new pair of tennies was in order.  Keeping shoes that fit, on a growing 7 year old is a bit of a challenge, especially when this one can't stand to wear any kind of shoe, when her toes are even remotely close to touching the front of the footwear.

Off we went in search for the perfect pair of tennis shoes, and after a visit to Target, we/she found the perfect pair of Sketchers at Famous Footwear.  After a stop at Wendy's for lunch, we headed back to the ranch.

The project of the afternoon for the girls was the baking of pumpkin spice bread, while I continued with several of my projects.  When they had gathered all of the ingredients, into the bread maker machine they went, and it was done a few hours later.  It was so tasty, that after dinner, we all had a few slices for desert. 

 

The finished product was pretty darned good!

I'm up early this morning, (4:10 am), because we have transitioned from having Laila on the weekend, to a school day.  She's staying with us one more night, and we'll be taking her to school this morning, then picking her up this afternoon.  

Armed with the building permit, the concrete contractor will be here this morning to make some final measurements, then the entire crew & machinery will be here tomorrow.  He thinks they will be able to dig the foundation footings, and get it framed up in one or two days, and that the concrete will be on the ground by the end of the week.  We'll see.................  

A COLOSSAL CAVE

Lots of issues with Google, and Sprint this morning.  After loading these pictures 3 times, I was finally able to get them in the order of how our day  progressed.  I'll cut the narrative short, and let the photos speak for themselves.  After Laila's favorite breakfast of pancakes, we drove out to Colossal Cave, which is about 7 miles from our house.  After a 1 hour guided tour of this huge cave, we had lunch at Subway, and headed back to the ranch.  When dinner was history, a game of Junior Monopoly had the 7 year old kicking the old folks butts, as Laila walked away with a stash of money!  It was a good day with our Grand Daughter.  Now, if I can just get this uploaded, and posted...............

 

 

 

UNPACKING

With the quick trip back to Lake Havasu, and the retrieval of lots of our stuff, the job of getting everything organized, mostly in the kitchen, began in earnest yesterday.  Patty started by lining some of the shelves, then unpacking many of the boxes.  I found that the 4 smoke detectors were either not connected, or they had no batteries.  I think that the main reason none of them worked,  was that they had been neglected, painted upon, and even with new batteries, I couldn't get any of them to function properly.  Add that to the list of things to purchase.

At 2:30, we picked up Laila at school, and made quick stops at the hardware, and grocery store on the way home.  We have our Grand Daughter for the weekend, giving Mom & Dad a little break.  When we got back to the house, Grandma & Laila tackled more boxes, and someone found that playing in the empty boxes was much more fun.   Later, Grandpa BBQ'd a couple of pork loins, and after dinner we watched the Chronicles of Narnia, a movie that Laila had selected from her school library.

Late yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the Garage Contractor, that they finally got a building permit from the county.  The Cement Contractor will be here Monday morning, and I've been assured that everything will go pretty fast, once they start digging the footings for the foundation.
As soon as this fairly large garage (32' wide x 47' feet long) gets up, we can get serious about moving everything to Tucson. 

CHP AIR FORCE

 The current CHP fixed wing aircraft is a Cessna 206, Turbo Stationair.

From 1975, to 1986, I was assigned to the Los Banos CHP Office in Central California.  The two highways that received most of our attention, were State Route 152, an east-west 4 lane divided highway that crossed over the coastal range at Pacheco Pass, and Interstate 5, a north-south super slab, that is the primary artery between the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Los Angeles Area.

I'm not sure of the exact year, but somewhere in the late 1970's, the CHP made the decision to purchase several fixed wing aircraft.  Those first airplanes were Maule M4 tail draggers, equipped with short takeoff & landing kits (STOL), and they could almost land on a dime.  They were later replaced with Cessna 185's, and the current plane in service, is pictured above.  One of those first Maule's was stationed in Coalinga, a little less than 100 miles south of Los Banos, and it often patrolled I5, where I spent many days on patrol.

Each mile on I5 had a large, painted hashmark, so that the pilots would have a way to calculate ground speed.  Simply clicking cars through a measured mile, and determining speed based on time/distance, was defined by the courts as a speed trap.  So, what the pilots were supposed to do, was to slow the aircraft down, match their speed with the vehicle they were watching, then calculate the aircraft's ground speed by way of the painted hash marks.  In reality, their method of operation was the more simple way, and that was to time the vehicle through a measured mile, and with a known time, it was simple to calculate a cars exact speed.

There were many days when the aircraft was scheduled to be in our area for a specific time period, and we often had several patrol cars assigned to work speed enforcement with the airplane.  One pilot in particular, was so adept at spotting speeders, that we would be writing the tickets, one right after the other.  On many occasions, while stopped behind one vehicle, the pilot would be bringing another speeder to us, and I would step out into the road, and flag that driver to stop behind the patrol car.  Often, the pilot would pick up 2 or more vehicles traveling well above the posted speed limit, and we developed a technique, utilizing the P.A. system, to pull over 2 or 3 cars at once.  That type of enforcement stop, with multiple vehicles, was not one of my favorite things to do, but it often happened. 

One of my co-workers in Los Banos was Lonnie Smith, and his goal was to be a fixed wing pilot, flying one of the CHP aircraft.  He had a Cessna 140 taildragger, that he flew almost every day, building up his flying time hours.  I often flew with him, usually, for an hour or two, where we would go somewhere not too far away, have lunch or coffee, then return to Los Banos.  When he had built enough hours (300 minimum), and obtained his instrument rating, it wasn't much later that he was accepted into the CHP air wing.  His first assignment was in Coalinga, and when Lonnie would patrol I5 in the Los Banos area, he would sometimes land at Santa Nella, where I would pick him up, and we would have lunch. 

Working with the CHP airplane was something a little out of the ordinary, and there was one instance where a northbound failure to yield (high speed pursuit) came into our area.  The car being pursued was a Porsche, probably capable of speeds over 150 mph, and none of our mustangs could keep up.  However, the aircraft happened to be in the area where the pursuit started, and it became the primary pursuer.   I got involved briefly, as the Porsche went by me like I was standing still, and I was traveling at about 120 mph!  I followed for 15 or so miles, then turned it over to the next Officer, with the aircraft following from above.  Eventually, the car ran out of gas, and the driver was apprehended in the Tracy CHP Area. 

I could continue with several other stories about my involvement with the CHP aircraft, but that's probably enough for this post.  Working with the pilots, and the aircraft was one of the highlights of my CHP career.

650 MILES - 23 HRS

Day before yesterday, it was about  3:30 PM, when I finished back filling the trench in front of the house.  The 2 half inch water lines, and the 1 inch electrical conduit was now buried under 18-24 inches of dirt.  Patty and I had been talking about the need to start the moving process, always deferring to the fact that there was no garage yet. (more to that story in a minute)  On the spur of the moment, when learning that we still had no building permit for the garage, I decided to make a trip to Havasu, and retrieve some of our stuff.

After a quick shower, at 4:15 I was on the road to Lake Havasu.  Arriving at 9:30 PM, and up at 5:00 AM, yesterday morning, I started loading the truck and the little trailer.  As usual, I neglected to take any pictures when they were full, and took the one picture after Patty and I had unloaded most everything from the truck & trailer.  Just about everything that was boxed up from the kitchen is now here at the Chance Ranch, and a lot of it will find a new home starting today.

The last mention of the garage project was that we were waiting for the new engineered plans to arrive from L.A., and be resubmitted to the county.  The plans were supposed to get her on Monday, but didn't show up until Tuesday.  The county said they had to study the new plans, so the building permit is still down the road somewhere.  If there are no new issues, we might have a permit in the next few days.  At this point, I'll believe it when I can actual see and touch it!