So, aligning with my project plan goal of only working on the hottest days available, last weekend fit the bill perfectly, with temperatures well into the ohmygods. What a better weekend to do hours of backbreaking labour? And why not sucker, er invite some friends over to help? Well that’s what I did, and here’s how it all went down.
First off, there was much measuring and string tying (something that I have already come to loathe, despite it being the most critical aspect of accuracy in the whole project). Also some non-vampire related stake hammering.
Then we placed the sonotubes and footings into the holes, located those suckers to the best of our ability, and then shoveled like morons for the next 8 hours or so.
We paused from time to time to give the hole a solid Wacking.
We may have gotten a little punchy as the hours wore on under the punishing sun.
Finally we decided that hauling 30kg bags of concrete around was a lot more fun than shoveling untold hundreds of kgs of dirt, so we returned the Wacker (about which COUNTLESS puns were told) and obtained a much less exciting cement mixer and started the mixing of the 88 bags of concrete that I wisely had purchased, and had delivered to the driveway. First off naturally, we had to move the 2640kg of concrete from the garage to the back yard, which was just fantastic. Then came the mixing and the pouring and the tamping, all good fun.
Some revelations that come from shoveling all weekend long:
- I will NEVER complain about my job again.
That is all.
Also, I actually love my job and never complain about it, but shoveling all day long makes me appreciate things like being cool and comfortable much more.
So that’s the filling the hole part of the job. Not something that you can just ask your friends to do, but I did anyway. And they showed up and helped, and it was awesome.
Thanks guys.
Other deck posts (har har):