Glowing Glasses

As this Halloween night falls, the boys donned glowstick glasses and played light saber with extra glowsticks.

I had a few leftover peanut M&Ms, so I knocked on the door to the bedroom where they are having their night club and said "Trick or treat!" But they knew better, so we closed the door and they knocked to me, in the living room, and, when I opened the door, they chorused, "Trick or treat!" Ten M&Ms each was their haul, and they felt well rewarded. "Thank you, ma'am, for your generosity."

We go all out on celebrations here.

This morning we woke to gentle, steady rain. Yesterday Phil had had to swap the tractor bucket for the forks, and he is ready for that to be the quick connect. Our backhoe bucket also needs repair, and since we don't have the welder (nor the experience) to manage either, he loaded both front bucket and backhoe bucket into the truck and headed out for the welding shop.

After he stopped for gas, the truck wouldn't start again.

So the boys and I joined him and drove him to town to get a new battery. The swap of old for new took little time, and he continued on his way while I headed home. It's always something!

Late in the afternoon, I checked the weather, and it showed no rain for the next ten days or so. Perfect. Abraham swept off the foundation, and Jadon helped Phil and I snap the string line. Then Phil and I hauled block to dry stack two sides of the first level. Overall, it's all a perfect fit. Except that, because we didn't know that there would be corner blocks, and the corner blocks have smaller holes than the regular blocks, we may have to cut some of the corner rebar to allow all to fit.

The one disadvantage of the rainfall is that the road leading down to the site is slick mud. We ran out of gravel, and we miss it now. Rather than having a partial pallet easily accessible in the work site, we have to walk the blocks, one by one (for me) or two by two (for Phil). It's not a long walk, perhaps 30 yards per trip, but it definitely adds to the time.

For now, though, we're pleased that all fits so beautifully, and soon we will begin the added challenge of mortar.

In gardening news, I was reading a short book that recommended preparing all garden soil the fall before actual growing commences. The author suggested pulling sod and composting it (sod turns to humus quickly), trenching (or subsoiling, perhaps?) and allowing weeds to germinate and pulling them before they seed. The freeze-thaw cycle of winter also helps aerate the soil and ready it for spring.

It feels a bit hopeless to even attempt growing at the moment. With concrete blocks spread across the hill, and general lack of time, it seems that I still will not have much chance to grow next year.

But as I passed the greenhouse today, I realized I'm being silly. The compost in the front quadrant has sprouted a lush growth of weeds, ready to seed. If I could maintain even the front quadrant of the greenhouse in vegetables, that would be about 500 square feet of vegetable garden more than I've ever maintained before.

So I pulled the seedy weeds, and look forward to having a little spot of land ready for growing when spring comes.

An Unwanted Hole

For us, Sandy was an almost non-event. We had about an inch of rain total, gently falling over about 48 hours, which means our ground is well saturated and lovely.

Phil went to check on Snowman last night before bed. "Come. I don't think he'll make it through the night."

Snowman had fallen, and stared at us out of his left, bulging eye. It looked like dehydration, on top of whatever his initial issue was. We tubed about four gallons of water, molasses, garlic drench, electrolytes, aloe, and homeopathy into him. He had a squirting, smelly poop about halfway through, and we just wanted to leave him more hydrated than we found him. I covered him with hay for a blanket and waited until he was warm.

And so we left him to rest, unsure he'd make it through the night.

This morning he yet lived! His eye seemed less bulgy. We tubed him some more. Phil researched other options, and then he and the boys left to run all over town to find calcium that can be injected, and more electrolytes.

There is little information about downer bulls; downer cows usually go down due to birthing.

It took several stores and several hours of driving before they found all they wanted. Phil pulled in about 2:30 and went right to the barn. He walked in and Snowman vomited a gallon, had the runs, and lay still.

He never moved again.

I didn't really want to do a postmortem, but Phil wanted to know. With chemical gloves and his hunting knives, he cut open our bull.

What a waste. Beautiful orange fat all around, filled with nutrients from a summer of eating grass. Plenty of fat around the kidneys (and presumably the heart): he didn't starve to death. The four-part stomach, which I've never seen before. All enclosed in one large sack, the inner side of the four stomachs each look different. The rumen looks like it's covered in fine hair. One of the others has a delicate, scalloped look, almost like coral. Beautiful. Another looked almost like gills.

No puncture wounds, as far as we could tell, so not Hardware, at least, not in the stomach. (No magnet, either. Perhaps the magnet got stuck part of the way down? The book said that happens about one in six times. It would make sense that that would happen for us.)

But the rumen was full of grass, and had plenty of liquid. But the intestines looked entirely empty, without a hint of green along the length of them. Presumably a blockage, then. Surgery would have been the only possibility, and if Snowman had been two instead of seven, and the only bull instead of one of three, that may have been a prudent investment. But in this case, he had reached the end of his virile life (note that we've had no babies in six months, and that several cows who should have been bred show no signs of imminent delivery). We were hoping to eat him this winter, but he never got quite plump enough.

And now he never will.

Instead we have an unwanted hole in our orchard.

I loved that bull. I loved his gentlemanly demeanor; his patience; his grace. I loved his steady temperament, his enormousness, his horns.

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that one of the best indicators that this world is fallen, that the Bible narrative is correct, is that death always strikes us as absurd, as horrible. After all, death will come to us all. Looking only at the natural world, death should be no more surprising or horrifying than any other regular event: the rising of the sun; the changing of the seasons.

But it's not. It's awful. It doesn't lose its horror even though we've dealt with it regularly for three years now. Things we love aren't supposed to stop breathing.

A Waiting Game

Intermittent cold, gusty winds, with scattered rain showers lasted most of the day. When night fell, we'd had about 3/4", and the outer edge of Hurricane Sandy should hit tonight. Knowing that we might be out of power for some days, I tried to finish all the computer work I will have for the week. Phil cleaned his office, and now, miraculously, he can sit in the recliner chair.

The boys had a creative day. Joe made an impressive geomag structure, besides various Duplo planes and buildings with secret compartments.

Joe also came up with the most creative manipulation I've seen yet. He brought me a Post-it note and dictated a message for me to write. "I love you and read me a book." Then he put it in an envelope he found, closed the flap, and handed it to me. "This is for you." Subtle.

He realized, though, that gave me a bit too much latitude in book selection. He prefers the safe choices already on the boys' bookshelves to whatever new books I might dig up. So he cut up another paper specially to fit in an envelope and dictated a new message: "I love you. Read me a book on the shelf." That, too, went in an envelope.

Needless to say, I read to Joe a good bit today.

Abraham continues to make multiple comics every day: yesterday he finished one about 50 sheets of paper long; today he probably matched that output. We bought a box of 2500 sheets when we went to Costco: hopefully that will last until Christmas.

Jadon and Isaiah also developed a few comic strips, riffs on the One-Eyed Bart episodes in Toy Story. I was impressed especially with one of his description pages. Rather than centering the work on the page, he angled it, and attempted to record the events as if the words were actually cut off. (Maybe he saw such a thing in Tintin?)

Although it is not supposed to actually freeze tonight, the winds will apparently make it "feel like" 29. I brought in my little basil plant and dug up my lemon tree (apparently, though, lemons get nice tap roots: I left a good six inches in the ground, despite my best efforts). I'm not sure what to do with the lemon tree. The first winter, it fit on Jadon's dresser, now covered with books two deep. The second and third winters it lived in our broom closet, where it languished under a layer of scab and neglect. Now, though, it is bushy and massive. Perhaps it needs to be gifted to a friend: I don't think we want to live the next six months with a spiny lemon tree blocking our door.

At dusk, Phil and I walked over to get Snowman. This morning, Phil had opened up a few new paddocks so the cows had a good wind break and some new grass to eat. But poor Snowman: with the rain and his skinniness, he was shivering. Phil had fixed up a nice cattle panel enclosure in the big blue building, and with homeopathically dosed water, a hay bale for food, bedding, and warmth, we hoped Snowman would prefer that to the hurricane weather outside.

It wasn't easy to bring the bull over, but he was miserable enough that it didn't require more than general dragging by the leader. We didn't use the nose ring, but just the halter. Snowman grazed along the way, and then had a massive amount of diarrhea. Since that's a new symptom, apparently the homeopathy is having some affect. Or perhaps the fresh green grass after so much hay? Poor guy.

We brought Snowman to the door of the barn, but because the building entry was a bit darker than outside, Snowman put his hoof on the concrete foundation at the door, then backed up. The light differential and the unusual ground feel made him nervous.

Phil had a light right nearby and turned it on. Then, with a bit more tugging and pushing, Snowman went right in. We added apple cider vinegar for energy and aloe vera juice for intestinal soothing, covered him with hay for a bit for warmth (he soon shrugged it off), and left him in the covered dark, knowing we had done what we could.

So we wait for Snowman's turn for the better or worse and wait for the weather's fury or calm.

Ringing the Bull

While we walked through the orchard on our way to the bull, I admired the luscious grass and clover growing on the ground.

Phil moved the hen house yesterday in order to till. They are in the apple orchard, with their pen near the road. Still no eggs from them, the rascals.

Phil had a long conversation with a local farmer on Thursday, and asked for ideas about Snowman. The farmer suggested it might be a problem with teeth: if the bull's front teeth are bad, he's simply not going to be eating. Or it might be Hardware Disease, a problem when a piece of metal consumed at some point in the past (not necessarily on our farm) pierces part of the stomach wall and causes extreme pain.

Besides surgery (which isn't terribly appealing for a 7-year-old bull), the other option is to put a cow magnet down the throat.

Great. But how to constrain the bull? Other than an occasional slap on the behind, we've not touched him since he came. We don't yet have any animal containment other than our cattle panel chute: no head gate.

The farmer suggested a temporary ring on the bull's nose; one of those allows easy control.

We've been putting homeopathy in the water the last few days, in hopes it would help Snowman if he has an obstructed bowel; we haven't seen the poor guy eat in several days, and haven't seen any evidence of manuring (not that we've analyzed cow pies, so it is possible he was pooping the other 23 1/2 hours).

Today we headed out to put the newly acquired magnet down Snowman's throat. We were thrilled to see that he was eating minerals and grazing, and that he had evidence of manuring. That's all great!

It also meant that Phil had his work cut out for him to get the ring on his nose. He had been expecting a reclining bull, but instead had to put the leash on him, then pull him in close enough to ring him.

I stood back, minorly stressed, but Phil got the ring on. Snowman shook his head for a bit, but then I held the leash while Phil took the magnet and the "balling gun" (a plastic device with a little plunger at the end).

Three times, Phil put the balling gun in the throat and released the magnet, only to have Snowman chew for a bit, then spit it out, covered in green cud and slimy.

The fourth time, Phil put the red plunger far down the throat, and since there was no chewing, we assume it went in. (Phil did take a compass to the bull's side, but I don't believe it showed anything.)

We've done what we could. The farmer said he does not call the vet. We've treated as we can for obstructed bowel; put down the cow magnet for Hardware Disease. We've tried to keep up his strength with molasses. If he lives now, it'll be because he fought for it; if he dies, we'll miss him, but remain grateful for his offspring. Clover is fine young son.

That was our new adventure for the day!

The Good Mouser

As much as we had hoped to start setting blocks today, when we talked about it, today was a better day to till the peach orchard and sow a cover crop. We're dreadfully late as it is, but we have the seed, and today is a leaf day.

Sadly, after tilling just a small section, Phil realized the clutch on the tiller was no longer working. After checking the manual, he knows what the problem is (a pad wore through, or something like that): an inexpensive fix, as that failure is designed in the system, sort of like shear bolts. But he did have to quit early.

In some ways, as we prepare for the potential for five inches of rain in the near future, it may be just as well that the tiller broke, lest our entire hill slide away. All that Phil plowed today was the semi-level section near the road.

And because of the potential for massive rain, it didn't seem too appealing to go mark chalk-lines on the foundation: they'll just be washed away.

We had a funny mouse incident yesterday. I was moving form boards and came across a mouse, shivering with fear. The mouse was small and cute, but, really, I'm not enthusiastic about having a rodent problem before anything has even gone on the foundation.

We fetched sleek Cadbury, excited to watch the black cat of death using his instincts.

For several minutes, we laughed at the Keystone Kops routine that ensued. Cadbury spotted the mouse, and clapped a paw on the tail. The mouse ran away. Cadbury sauntered after it. The mouse ran into Cadbury's leg. Cadbury looked to the left. The mouse ran between Cadbury's legs. Cadbury looked to the right.

Now this may have been a most elaborate game of cat and mouse, but it looked to me terribly likely that the mouse would escape. Funny though it was, I was now committed to a mouse free work environment.

I went for Biggles.

When he spotted the cat, his paw jutted out and I thought maybe he had pinned down the mouse. But no, the rodent was dead in his mouth already, faster than my eye could follow.

Now we know which cat is actually a good mouser, and which is just a dabbler.

Ready for Blocks

Thursday morning we went out to remove form work and put down gravel. After I pulled the cleats and Phil had dealt with gravel and the plastic underneath for an hour, we gave up. Jadon, though, continued on until he had removed all the boards from the first day's pour. What a faithful, diligent fellow he is!

Phil was having a miserable time of it. The plastic under the sand remains fairly intact. The plastic under the gravel was chewed up horribly. And it smells awful, like a vat of cat urine (or something equally foul). So he was trying to scoop up the gravel, while sliding on plastic that tore, under a hot sun, wearing sunglasses that made his ear protection fit badly. He was done.

He had some time with friends scheduled in the afternoon, though, so his day ended better than it began.

It was interesting to hear why you don't take forms down too early. It's not because the concrete will run all over, or mush down. It's because if it dries too quickly, the chemical process needed to set the concrete doesn't finish, leaving the finished product weak.

This morning, we had a delivery first thing: our mortar arrived, and the first of our batches of concrete block. Each pallet of block weighs about 3500 pounds!

Phil has more or less organized the shipments by when we'll use them. Staging this project is a bit like a full-farm sudoku puzzle.

While Jadon and I took down the rest of the formwork, Phil used the rest of the gravel to cover the ground where we'll be working.

I wasn't expecting the site to need that much gravel (I had been thinking maybe we could use some for the driveway, for example), but I am thankful we had enough to cover the site, and I'm thankful we were able to get rid of all the stinky plastic!

While Jadon and I picked up all the scrap wood around the site, Phil headed up to another delivery truck, bringing us some scaffolding. We won't need it for a little while most likely, but it was good thinking on Phil's part to order it. The boys happily helped Phil snap it together, and they happily climbed all over it.

Except Joe. He maintained a careful distance.

We headed out then for our two hour drive to Costco. We coincided it, as usual, to pick up cow minerals and 30 gallons of apple cider vinegar (mercifully broken into two 15 gallon containers). Our friends at Lancaster Ag deliver once a month, so to save on shipping we head up to the drop point. Today while we were loading, the owner of farm happened to stop by, and he gave us an hour long tour. He has a beautiful farm in the Shenandoah Valley, all green rolling hills, looking out on green rolling hills. He showed us his movable chicken houses, and took us over to see the turkeys, now about three weeks out from processing. I haven't really seen a group of turkeys up close: the toms really do fluff up their back feathers, just like in elementary school art projects. And their funny necks and heads, and all the gobbling. It was fun!

Phil is enthusiastic: tomorrow we hope to start laying blocks.

A Bit of Wood Removal

After two nights in a row of nightmares about how much concrete was missing under the form, since I somehow hadn't pounded the concrete enough to mash it around the rebar support, I begged Phil to start removing the forms, even if it was a bit too early.

Unlike the last foundation work, which required hacking for days to remove the buried forms, with Jadon using the driver, me using the wire cutters, and Phil using a crowbar, we removed many cleats and the first of the boards rather in a short time.

The cleats proved a bit disappointing: because the concrete came up right underneath them, I didn't float under them. Some turned out moderately fine.

The middle, which had two closely spaced cleats, was the worst.

And when we removed the form board, the concrete was still quite wet underneath, so we quit for the day after removing that one.

Without the use of the concrete vibrator, Phil figured it was as good as it could have been. I am hopeful that as we keep removing formwork, the more wet concrete pours will have filled in the space better.

It's not as bad as my nightmare, but not as good as I'd wished.

***

In other news, Phil moved the cows away from the future garlic patch. We are into winter's almost complete lack of growth, so although there is some grass on the ground, we plan to supplement with hay until next spring.

Isaiah spent about six hours in the sand pile with the hose and sprayer. He had a great time! Phil went to water the cows in the evening and found we had no water. Isaiah then confessed that, yes, the hose had lost water pressure when he was using it. Apparently six hours with the hose is sufficient to run our well dry.

I poured out the peanuts to let them dry in the sun.

With weather in the low 80s today, we are soaking in the Indian summer.

We Recover

We all slept in today. Phil had to go up the road to pick up animal feed at a drop point, and there were gifts waiting for us. When we opened the care package from his parents, we devoured all the treats (rice crackers and beef jerky, among others), and just sat and ate and laughed together on the bed. Phil said, "I don't think I want to build a house. We'll miss out on this!"

It was after noon before I emerged from the house. Phil was creating a computer model of the Underground Storage, concrete block by concrete block. That took most of the day, but in the evening he and Isaiah took the laundry to clean it. I was amazed he had the energy.

Jadon didn't mention soreness, but seeing how much smaller the piles of sand and gravel are, I bet he was.

At one point, I asked if he wanted to go remove some of the form boards: the foundation we poured on Saturday could be removed at this point. He looked at me with disbelief, and I suddenly realized that, curious though I feel, the idea of doing the physical labor required to remove the forms was more than my body would stand.

So I went and dug my few peanuts from the greenhouse. I planted 50 peanuts terribly late (July 11), so when I dug up the plants and found peanuts, I was surprised and gratified.

I love the little nitrogen nodules on the roots, like tiny balloons.

Snowman's body condition has plummeted the last week. All the other cows are round and luscious, and he is thin and lackluster. I stood outside the electric wire and fed him, plant by plant. He ate perhaps 25 before he seemed done and I tossed the rest in the enclosure where the other cows devoured them with zest.

Besides Snowman's concerning condition, I was distraught on Sunday when I went to check on my worms for the first time in eight days. All dead. The propped open lid must have let in water, and the water release on the bottom of the freezer apparently clogged. Add to that the swift decomposing of comfrey: where the worms would have been several feet out of the water a week before, the comfrey broke down so swiftly that I went from feet of material to inches. The leftover material is a rich black, but how truly sad: I kept my worms alive and multiplying for almost ten months before killing them all. Boo.

I've been checking my peach bud grafts. Of the 24 or so I've visually inspected, perhaps one has actually been grafted in: the rest didn't take. Next year I'll plan to do bench grafts, and hope those take better.

Yesterday I noticed that I hit six figures of page views on this blog. Thanks for reading!

Foundation, Day Two

Phil slept through his alarm multiple times this morning (unlike me, who woke the first time—usually I sleep through it). So we got off to a later start, beginning to pour around 8:45.

It started horribly. The first three loads of concrete were so dry I couldn't work with them: I made Phil come and do the screeing and floating. He was able to do so, but it took maybe 20 minutes per load just to float. So slow!

And Phil could hardly lift a bucket. "I don't know how much of this I'm going to be able to handle," he said. So I gave him Arnica, and he took it whenever he needed, and persevered.

We realized that although he was adding more water than he did on Saturday, the sand and gravel must have dried out in the last two days, which required more water. After we figured that out, the rest of the pouring went much better.

Jadon helped until his beet red face and droopy demeanor made me send him inside. He had made chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and we ate one every few hours to keep our energy up. And I stocked up on health store peanut M&Ms (made without artificial colors!), and by late afternoon, when I was dragging, a mouthful helped me carry on.

When the sun set, we had about five sections to go. The idea of cleaning up, only to get up tomorrow knowing that we had to pour a bit more and clean up again ... no thanks.

So we carried on, and finished eleven hours after we started. It was well after dark, and Phil ruined a hose because he couldn't see very well, but we are done. And grateful to be done.

Phil increased his total lifting: 31 bags today; over ten tons.

Underground Storage moves along. Two or three days now to let the concrete cure; we are thankful to sit still.

My Husband Is Stronger Than Your Husband

So we didn't get all the concrete poured today. Though we started our first batch at 8am and finished cleaning our tools around 7pm, we finished 27 bags of cement, or just short one bag short of 40% (we purchased 70 bags of cement).

Each bag of cement Phil broke into two parts (he emptied half into a bucket for easier lifting), each weighing 47 pounds. Here's how to mix cement.

Put six buckets of gravel into the mixer. Add a bucket of water to moisten the gravel. Add the two buckets of cement. (Note to those not intimate with construction: there is no such truck as a cement mixer. Cement is the powder, the glue, that holds sand and gravel together to make concrete. A truck with cement would be pointless. Properly named, you see concrete mixers driving around. I often have to edit children's books on the fly: few authors seem to get this one right.) It will stick well to the gravel, and, once the cement goes in, the horrendously loud noise of tossing gravel immediately dissipates. Then comes four buckets of sand. Mix for a few minutes, add more water from the hose's nozzle if needed, and deliver to the site. Pour off.

If you were counting, that's 13 buckets, raised to the mixer's opening which is about four feet off the ground. Poured in while the mixer is spinning, so the person cannot even rest the bucket on the lip of the mixer.

The lightest of the 13 buckets is the 5 gallons of water, weighing just over 40 pounds. The heaviest was the gravel, which Phil estimated at about 60 pounds. So each of the 27 loads averaged about 650 pounds. Which means, yes, Phil picked up over 350 buckets, hoisted them to shoulder height, and flung the contents into the mixer.

Over 17,500 pounds. Almost nine tons.

I tossed in the first bucket of gravel, before the mixer was spinning. I gasped in disbelief to realize that not only would Phil be doing all the stressful driving over the bridge, but all the hoisting, too. I could fill the buckets, but he would have to lift them.

He backed the tractor over the bridge with the first load of concrete. We had hoped that would work easily: back over, turn, dump, and drive straight out. Alas: with the mixer on the back, the tractor could not make a sharp enough turn to evade the rebar poking up. Forward over the bridge, then turn around. All told: twenty-eight trips back and forth across that bridge.

Our first few loads were slow indeed. While Phil dumped the 13 buckets, I refilled them as fast as I could. He drove down to the site, and I climbed down the ladder to meet him. I held a piece of scrap metal roofing on the outside edge, so when the mixer poured, if it happened to pile up or fling out, it would be contained. (It also protected me somewhat from the spinning concrete, though I did end the day with bits in my ears, on my cheeks, and, of course, on my clothes.)

After dumping, the concrete needed a few things to process it. First, we pounded it with a broom handle-type bar: a butter churning motion, forcing gravel into the sides and bottom of the formwork, trying to ensure that it reached below the rebar supports, down to the ground. The first ten loads or so were quite dry, and they needed some heavy pounding.

The result looked something like a gravel pie: very lumpy.

A 2x4 serves to scree the concrete. Resting the board across the form, we jiggle it back and forth, trying to level the top: adding shovels of concrete as needed, or scooping away excess.

Next comes one of the miracles of concrete. Somehow, by taking a float (a flat metal rectangle with a handle on the top) and applying a little pressure, the gravel sinks below the surface, rendering a clean, flat appearance. How can this be? It is crazy!

Use the 2x4 again to get rid of any more excess. Then float again to make it look pretty.

After it has a chance to dry for a half hour or so, float once more to get rid of water, use an edger tool to create a crisp edge, and brush with a little broom to make the surface more receptive to adherence when the concrete blocks arrive.

When we started, Phil did all this, too. Well, I did the pounding part, and added shovelfuls as needed, but besides holding the metal roofing and filling buckets, my part didn't feel terribly robust.

After Jadon finished listening to Car Talk at 11am, we had done perhaps eight loads in three hours. It felt like good progress, but it wasn't at all fast. Now the beauty of having a helpful son comes in.

Jadon took over the filling of buckets. This was basically his full time job for the next seven hours (minus a half hour where he made sandwiches for all his brothers and himself). He stood in the sun, shoveling buckets of sand and gravel. So faithful, so diligent. No complaining, just doing what needed to be done.

This freed me to do the concrete work. Phil would fill a batch and bring it down, and I would manage it: the pounding, the screeing, the floating.

I found it almost ridiculously fun. Concrete has this amazing, almost viscous property, where it pillows up around the 2x4. Have you ever watched a waterbed move? It's like that. My heart has always leaped at the beautiful bulge of moving water (even while always feeling just a bit disappointed that the actual feel of the bulge always escaped: I could see it, but where I sat remained mostly stationary). Or maybe it's a bit like a water balloon, a water balloon the size of a pillow.

Imagine getting to play with a such a beautiful form, such a magical substance, all day! It was very fun for the first twenty-five bags. I kept wanting to giggle at this funny substance that could absorb rocks and pillow up and harden quickly.

On bag 26, Phil said he almost couldn't even lift the buckets any more. I was tired, and because of the angle of the bridge, Phil couldn't simply dump the concrete where it belonged: he had to dump it where he could and I had to move it where it belonged. That was decidedly less fun, even though he made it moist enough that it ran fairly freely.

By bag 27, the sun had gone down and the enormity of cleaning the tools and making dinner and bathing the boys started to overwhelm me. But I cleaned the various tools, cooked up five pound of hamburger or so, ensured all six of us were bathed, and have tried to walk as little as possible since.

One more day, two more days maybe: no matter how much longer it takes, we're thankful not to be pouring tomorrow. We're wishing we could finish in one more day, but Phil thinks he was about at his limit today. And though we've done 50% of the linear feet of the perimeter, the long side that remains is a third wider than the long side completed (it rests not on claystone but on clay, and thus needs a stronger foundation). Good progress today, though!

The weather was perfect, sunny, breezy, in the upper 60s. I think the coldest we've had has been 39, and I was surprised to notice that, unlike the tomatoes which are still somewhat producing, one of my hibiscus has wilted entirely, and the other ones look unhappy. Their mortality is upon them.

Rain Delay (Hooray!)

I went to bed with the boys at 9:15 last night. I was wiped out. (Then I woke up for over three hours in the middle of the night, which sort of defeated the whole go to bed early plan, but that's okay.) Phil sat up, and suddenly a deluge started. He came to bed and said, "I don't think we'll be pouring tomorrow."

We only had about .4", and much of it drained away during the day. But as we talked through what needed to happen before we pour, we realized it was better to take a day to manage various farm things. Feed the cows; mail a report; pick up a few supplies at the hardware store; plant the comfrey roots I dug up last Saturday (oops: I meant to get to that earlier).

We also hooked up our small pump, that we used to use for watering the cows from the creek, and pumped out as much water as we could from the foundation area. It didn't work well (had to be primed every few minutes, it seemed), but after an hour, the site was reasonably dry. I also retrenched to make sure the corner would drain.

The other thing we needed to do was determine how best to mix concrete. We think our mixer will handle one 94 lb. bag of cement at a time, and one of the standard "recipes" for concrete is one part cement, two parts sand, three parts gravel. Which is very well, except that a bag of concrete doesn't have a clear volume measurement.

We dumped the bag of cement into two 6-gallon buckets, and the cement was about 5 3/4" from the top. So we'll need four buckets of sand and six buckets of gravel. And another bucket of water.

Phil is hoping to do this in a day, because otherwise the bond between concrete won't be as strong. He has a plan for how to manage. However, it seems a bit ambitious. We're looking at over 6500 pounds of cement, plus 280 buckets of sand, plus 420 buckets of gravel. Add 70 buckets of water.

Pray for the intrepid Lykosh six tomorrow, if you think of it. I think we'll be needing some supernatural help.

Bridge and Bars

It took us about seven hours today, but we are ready to pour concrete now! The predicted thunderstorms held off until we just finished (and thus far we've had no more than a sprinkle).

My first task was to suspend the rebar about 3" off the ground and about 3" away from the edges of the forms. That required drilling holes through the cleats and threading tie wire through. It was not intellectually challenging work, nor did it require muscles, but it was tiring nonetheless.

Phil had the more challenging task. He needed to finish the bridge over the formwork, so that when we need to pour concrete, we'll be able to access all around.

When he had finished building, he went around and sawed off the edges of the various boards near the bridge, "in case I tip over." Isaiah took about 80 photos of the tractor's first crossing: we wanted to watch for any deflection.

Happily, the boards held firm. And equally happy, Phil was able to turn the tractor around and drive out. There's not much excess room to maneuver, but it's enough for now.

Next came the unpleasant rebar-bending task. Phil bent ten or so a few days ago, but even when I stood on the rebar to prevent the bar from rolling, it didn't do much good. And Phil didn't like the motion, either, which used muscles to pull the rebar up. He designed a jig so that he would make a rowing motion, pulling the rebar toward him. It took him about five minutes to design and build it, and about 30 seconds per bar to bend. Physically difficult, but much easier (I even did part of one!). And since he had to bend almost 60 bars, easy is good.

We needed to suspend these bent bars in a perfect line, three inches off the ground. We had previously marked with chalkline and measuring tape where to drill, and then burned out our drill making holes for these rebar supports. We used tie wire to tie them in place.

It took a long time.

One final check with the surveyor's level to make sure we're mostly perfect, and that was our work for the day.

In neither visuals nor text does this sound fabulously exciting. But since I did very little with the metal building, I'm finding all these steps interesting.

This afternoon, Joe and Isaiah commandeered various discarded wood. Isaiah took the jig down, then thought it looked like a good plane body. As we finished with smaller wood sections, he would add them. When he needed a joystick, he switched out the drill bits and made a spot for his rebar controller. He would tell Joe what pieces to get, and Joe would cheerfully fetch them. They worked together, and talked through what they were doing. It was a brother moment, and beautiful.

They flew their plane for a time, pilot, co-pilot, and a passenger or two.