Last Pour of June?!?!

On Saturday, June 16th, we set our sights on the last pour of concrete for the month.  We know we will have one more when we pour the upper wall, but this one seemed like a biggie.  With this pour we can build the center wall in the basement, hang the joists for the floor above, lay the decking, start on the upper walls...pivotal, yes?  And all those other things can happen in stages, whereas the pour is just one big push to get it done - no stopping once it is started.

Thomas and I cannot say enough how grateful we are for Pop's help everyday.  I'm starting to wonder if he set up a trip wire somewhere out there because he pulls up to help as soon as we walk out there in the evenings.  And we are super blessed for the Salas family to show up en masse again.  Seriously - we appreciate everyone's help!  (And I know Daniel and Julie would rather be in four inches of concrete than at work, but we understand we chose to work on days you are already working.)

We learned a lot from the first pour and changed up our strategy a bit.  We also had a driver who is very good at what he does and distributed the concrete really well with a more advantageous angle than the last pour.  Strategy 1: distribute the concrete to the edges.  Strategy 2: scree the concrete as soon as possible.  Strategy 3: bull float behind the scree board, and as soon as the concrete loses its sheen, quit floating it.  Strategy 4: use the trowel to cream the top after lunch.  Strategy 5: keep Tori out of the way - she's in charge of core-filling the concrete block around the cellar stairs.  A solid strategy for success!

Extra thanks to Marie for going after my camera and taking these pictures:

 Tom, David, and Pop getting ready to scree the slab.

 Our faceless muscle man (he said no pictures of him because he has a prior agreement with another blog)

After I filled the bucket with concrete, I handed it off to the muscle man who helped move than bucket and pour it into our block.

 Pop, Tom, and David screed the concrete halfway, and Tom tag-teamed me into the action.  Thanks to Marie for jumping in on the core-fill.

Our youngest helpers went to check out the neighbors' "jackbutts."  The burros moved in about a month ago and surely enjoyed the company of Maya and Sara.

All in a day's work!  I think the truck was on the property less than an hour - we moved fast!  The floor looked good, though we were short a wee bit in one corner for all the core-filling we accomplished.  We wrapped up with pizza for all!