Thursday, October 3, 2019

How do you eat a Hefalump?

One eighty pound bag at a time . . .

sixty of them . . . . forty eight hundred pounds all told
Had to make three trips as I did not dare carry more than sixteen hundred pounds at a time in my trailer
Loaded on , and loaded off . . . .
Marty brought over his cement mixer and I prep the first five by seven foot section to be poured .
Mix . . . .
Load . . .
Pour . . . fifteen bags
Level . . .
Float . . . .
and float six more times till we have some semblance of smoothness
Next day it looks like a slab. . . though the upper left hand corner came out a bit low to the level line
Next day prep the second five by seven section . . . a good place to dispose of scrap iron and broken hand tools
and dance with Marty's cement mixer again .
Fifteen more bags lifted , mixed , poured , leveled , and floated . . .
A little easier to get right this time with a level front and back
Next day a couple hours of work and I prep the third section
Mower and blower already making use of the new slab
I'm half way through eating the hefalump . . . it hurts just to look at those yellow bags
Sunday we wash rinse and repeat
aaaaand right here it all goes sideways on me when I accidentally mix an extra watery load and dump the whole mixer load in the wheel barrow . . . See if I'd been half as smart as my buddy Glenn Filthie claims I am , I'd have thought it out , and only poured half a mixer load in the barrow at a time so to avoid the spilling bit . But no , duffus maximus in typical fashion here , had to go full retard on this one and I am still paying for it today .
. . . . and in a feeble attempt to not spill said watery load from my crappy low sided , mended wheel barrow , I make an effort to keep it low just barely lifting it and my back gives out on me . . . 
I push through the pain and finish the pour . . . . just barely
. . . . and spend the next three days flat on my back unable to stand or walk
By Thursday afternoon , thanks to the wonders of modern chemistry , I am semi mobile again and spend a couple hours prepping the last section .
Friday I move the last sixteen bags onto the saw horses in a lame attempt at reducing the stress on my back . . . yea right!
and poured the fourth slab
Took the weekend off and rested my back again . Monday I mixed the last bag and a half of cement and poured the threshold under the doors .
Not bad for a hack .
Should keep the mess out of my garage too
And now the Volvo has a dry place to spend the winter hopefully avoiding the flood and ice we had last winter .
As I had to cut the doors short for them to open against the rising grade outside I added a sweep to the door on the inside .
And on the outside too