Yesterday was worse; yesterday I really felt like shit and couldn't have done anything strenuous if you put an RPG to my head and said get productive or die. Today was not quite as bad, but I definitely wasn't as gracious as I should have been when my new neighbors showed up on my porch at 6:30 and wanted to get moving at the build site. "You don't have to do any work," they assured me, "Just come and supervise." Uh huh. I sighed and grabbed my hat. We loaded up half a dozen bags of concrete and a full barrel of water in the trailer, and set out to fulfill my worst fears about whether the Jeep could pull a loaded-down trailer through the soft sand in the wash. It can't.
We dug out the tires twice, then started dumping weight and pushing in hopes of getting the Jeep to firmer ground. First the concrete went; that helped a little. Then half the water; that did the trick. We unhitched the trailer at the build site, then went back and loaded the concrete sacks into the Jeep. I'm very, very glad I didn't try that when I lived her by myself. It was one of the things I anticipated going wrong, and I had no clue how I'd get out of it alone.
After that it was just a matter of measuring and digging some holes, then mixing some concrete and pounding in some rebar. We got all the pier foundations done! I'm exhausted and surely good for nothing for the rest of the day, but it feels so good to be making progress at last.
Next step: The pier forms!
2 comments:
Good on ya, Joel!
Just remember the age-old gulch building code: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!
I'm a little concerned with the saddle/valley draining right to the cabin, but if it'll be off the ground, you'll probably be fine.
The cabin will indeed be off the ground, so if there's another mud flow as there was during the last monsoon it'll not disturb the building.
However I'm hoping to avoid that in the future by building a rock wall on the near side of the saddle that drains down the ridge, diverting the water and mud until it has passed the cabin site.
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