This week saw some progress, but it was also frustrating. The images below show the progress. The frustration was largely due to my ignorance of concrete and flawed thinking on what Wylie would like. The ignorance was that I didn’t figure on time needed for concrete to cure before backfilling. The flawed thinking was that Wylie would find it interesting just being around a construction project. Moving forward, it’s clear Wylie should probably only be on site a couple of days or so each week, not a full 5 days in a row. One bit of good news is that my knee came through this week in good shape, feeling much better than last week.
The week was not totally lost for the kids. Wylie’s friend Quinn and her sister Maddie came up for a while. Dirt was played in, food was eaten, and flowers were admired. Maddie in particular was always helping and looking to help, a real pleasure.
We got Steve to help with pouring the cellar. Sore back and all, he did a great job of handling the heavy hose to pour the forms while Logan and I ran the mixer/pump and mixed the concrete. Except for a bit of clogged hose at the start, the pour went quite smoothly, although we were still all exhausted by the end of the day.
After pouring the cellar walls, Logan began the dirt work to level the building site. The left image shows the work early on, and the right image shows the site essentially ready. The cellar still needs to be back filled, which we could have easily done if we ignored that the cement should cure more. (Note I sealed the cellar walls with a gray sealant.)
Maddie and Quinn both got to run the excavator, with Maddie running it solo after a brief introduction by Logan.
Wylie also got some more time on the excavator, with Logan’s help. This video is fairly long, but you can see he’s getting the hang of it.
I was hoping to get the boys to do some work and get a feel for the project, but it really didn’t work out too well. They did move some ICFs for us (left image) and managed to partially peel the bark off one log (right image), but most of the time they just hung around. Well, adapt I suppose…
We also got settled into the camp a bit more. The rain (shade) fly is back up, as you can see in the left photo where Logan takes a break. Wylie still managed to have some fun, when he would admit to it… The power system works, so we have a powered cooler that keeps the food (and beer) cool all week, the Starlink seems to be working (but I forgot to bring the cord to my laptop), the water is cold and sweet, and we’ve got most of the other kinks worked out for extended stays. More next week!
Working electricity and water makes for a very comfortable camp. Keep up the good work.
looking good!