It All Worked Out!

I appreciate Tom's confidence in me as a hard worker, but I certainly wasn't ready for what was coming down the pipe....

 The concrete is just about to hit the ground - and splatter all of us really well in the process.

 First order of business was to spread out the concrete.  Check.

 Thomas, David, Pop, and me sporting my pink pants - with shovels and rakes we distributed the concrete, particularly into the footer.

 Daveman saved my bacon.  I will give a thumbs up to that, too!

Andres was kind enough to take pictures until the camera battery died.  Sadly it died while he was perfecting this shot - his dad and tio bent over with butts in the air pulling up on the wire mesh.

Raking was hard work, but something I did well.  Floating the concrete is whole other task.  This was really my third time working with (first time "in") concrete: 1st was the footer last fall, 2nd was the wall pour.  I keep learning a little bit more each time.  This time I learned that it would be helpful to be a taller girl with upper body strength.  Shoot!  Having never even seen anyone use a bull float, I was asked to get to it.  I was kind of ready for a meltdown after using it briefly - no idea what I was doing, what results I was looking for, and I could barely hold onto the pole with strength on my tiptoes.  Needless to say, I took a much needed water break and picked the rake back up.  At this point the strategy was changed: Thomas worked the edges to the right height, Dave & Pop worked the bull floats, and I worked the rake to smooth and redistribute the concrete, shoveling a scoop whenever needed.  I also found the little 4'x6' pad for the cellar stairs to be a nice manageable size for me.  We had more concrete than we needed, so we actually core filled our first layer of block there.

All in all, it was good exercise, and certainly an exercise in patience and biting my tongue.  Without Pop & Dave, Thomas would have been in deep trouble, and we are super grateful for their help, not to mention Andres on camera and Maya and Sara as gophers.  After a round of quesadillas, strawberries, and cold drinks, everyone retired to clean up.

By the afternoon we were walking on it (and spraying it with water).  Drum roll...

 the little slab...

the big slab...

And we get to do it all over again next Saturday!