Phil and I headed out to lay block in the morning. In his first half batch of mortar, he laid 36 blocks, which finished a level on the long side and started another level.
After lunch, we needed to do some grout, but both batches ended up stuck to the back of the mixer. When that happens, it's a painful half hour of gradual scraping the back of the mixer to loosen the compacted sand and peastone, covered with concrete: it's horrible. And three of the last four batches we've done have had that same problem. Argh!
The extra hour we spent trying to scrape the back of the mixer meant that it was 4pm by the time we were ready to mix up another half batch of mortar. I had been watching the sun, thinking it was probably too late, and when I stopped Phil and said, "It's a bit after 4pm: do you really want to start another batch?" he opted not to. Too bad: to have the will and the strength to carry on, but lack the daylight!
He did put down the metal mesh that will offer stability after the fourth row of blocks, though: he is ready to go for the morrow.
Or at least, so we thought. He was driving the tractor up to the barn and parked it for a bit to fetch something. As he approached the tractor he realized that the slow drip the hydraulic line has had for some time had suddenly become a steady stream.
Without a tractor, construction pretty much stops. So Phil is up in the barn (how thankful we are for the barn!) now, hoping to get the tractor ready for the morning.
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