poplar road

Today was set in the calendar weeks ago as the day to pour the cement for Richard’s barn. (I asked him if I could refer to it as the shop now, but no, he says it will always be the barn.) To get it done in time, Richard had to take Friday off work, and then begged Chris to come up one more time to help him get it done. What nobody expected was the unseasonably hot weather: 30 degrees in the shade by midday, requiring an extended siesta on Saturday, and yesterday reached 39 by mid-afternoon but Richard carried on after only a brief break when Chris and Dagny headed home. It was the mosquitoes which finally drove him inside at dusk, and he was up again at 5am, ready just in time for the arrival of the cement truck at 8. They started early, knowing today would be another scorcher, and had to split the job in two, to make sure the interior floors that needed polishing would get done before the heat marred the work. We’ll see the final results of the outside pour on Monday, but here’s the latest – I know Chris is anxious to see the results of sweating his ass off for two days. Richard is doing his yippee-skippy dance behind me and Rene, the concrete finisher, is finally going home for the day. It may still be a barn on the outside, but the inside is chicken crap-filled moon craters no longer! And thanks to a tip from the finisher, they also were able to make the floor completely level. Hurrah!

As covered in my last post, Richard raised our barn onto a row of cinder blocks to allow him to pour a new concrete floor thick enough for structural integrity. The old floor had a huge slant downward from east to west, but the good news is, with a laser leveler to check his measurements, he confirmed he can pour to the top of the cinder block row on the west side and the minimum four inches on the east, and only be an inch off of level. That’s a huge relief for him, after all that work. Now he’s just finished two intense days in the blazing sun to get ready for the concrete pour, with lots more still to do next weekend. I’ve a number of photos over the past month to catch up on, and I’ve just put in a 12 hour day in the garden myself (another post on that coming soon) so here’s a gallery, pics only. If you want to know more, please use the Comments to ask.