Keeping character, or restoring a pond

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Those three run about nine hundred to a little over a thousand pounds.

But this one is about sixteen hundred.

 

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That's "each" for those three rocks.

Now I'll bet you looked at that big ole girl and thought I was a sick puppy to want that dull bland looking puppy on this project.

Granite boulders share something with a t-shirt on a young lady.

Everything changes with the application of a little water. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

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This rock will have to be prepared for the column with a lot of TLC. It's got about four colors in it in layers and a lot of quartz.

It lacks perfect shape and consistant pattern.

We call that character.

Some have it.

It is it.

 

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Today we had what would have to be best described as a most excellent day.

We added four extra pairs of hands with strong backs to our mix.

They did the trick.

A little after eight this morning we started mixing cement, two mixers doing a dance with four partners.

 

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A third of a yard at a time eventually adds up. But when you've only got about four or five of them down it looks like finish is only forever away.

 

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At noon we had fifty one or two mixer loads down so we broke for lunch. That's about seventeen cubic yards, mixed, poured, and spread.

 

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After lunch I put three to work removing the old observation deck and three forming up the end beam of the pour.

Here's the deck crew.

 

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The beam forming crew didn't have the shade. But they did have a fan.

 

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At quiting time we had a pond with a concrete bottom.

 

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If you get the chance to talk to an old folks that worked through the depression they'll tell you stories about hand shoveling ten fifteen yards of sand and or rock a day for next to nothing while being proud to have a job.

We ended up mixing twenty yards today.

It was a good day. No one fainted. No one quit. And I didn't see any evidence of hard feelings either.

In fact I had to back off the pace of the guys feeding the mixers to keep from wearing out the guys in the hole. I did this spontaneous water breaks and breaking their rhythm.

Once everyone realized where I was coming from the testosterone levels settled down a bit and the competition slowed. After all, four men working you're going to have at least sixteen competitions going on semitaneously.

One of the things I did to make it easier on the guys feeding the mixer was to move the mini-hoe in between them and keep a pile of freshly turned mix for them to handle. It's easier to load a mixer when the pile is at a certain height and the mix is of a certain rate of compaction. (almost none, compaction)