I have now experienced the nightmare of the blogger. I almost had my entire post all written out when I closed the window without saving it first. I don’t know why I did that… It wasn’t an accident or anything, I just closed it out. Reeeeaaaalll smart Thomas…

My whole post was about the concrete pouring that we have been doing over the past three weeks at our house. As usual with people who have lost their entire post, I don’t really feel like writing the whole thing out again, so you are going to get the sweetened, condensed version, complete with pictures which are not sweetened or condensed in any way.

Concrete: A hard, strong construction material consisting of sand, conglomerate gravel, pebbles, broken stone, or slag in a mortar or cement matrix.

Cement: A building material made by grinding calcined limestone and clay to a fine powder, which can be mixed with water and poured to set as a solid mass or used as an ingredient in making mortar or concrete.

There is a difference between the two.

Our plan was to pour (with the help of our neighbor who actually knew what he was doing), approximately 15 yards of concrete in the form of one huge slab in front of our garage and two walkways. Since we didn’t have enough guys to help finish, we poured half one day, and the other half two weeks later. Forming was completed, concrete was ordered, and the very early day came… that’s one thing I don’t like about concrete. You have to get up really early to pour. I guess it’s that way with a lot of things though. I don’t like getting up early. But I don’t like staying in bed forever. I like getting up around 8am. Not 11am. Not 6am. I digress with short sentences. Sorry. It won’t happen again. Moving on.

We were hoping that the concrete would jump out of the truck by itself and then we could all be done for the day, but it didn’t exactly live up to our expectations…

In fact, the concrete didn’t come out at all at first, which is why “The Great Picture Taker Otherwise Known As Matthew” was able to snap this shot (he told me to give him some recognition for his pictures)…

Dad is about to get run over by the concrete truck, or get a boot full of concrete. One or the other (my new truck is in the background!!! You finally get to see what it looks like!)…

The driver forgot to put the secret ingredient of fiber mesh in the load, which keeps the concrete from cracking once it’s dry. Ben had to run down the hill to pick it up. In the meantime we poured the part right in front of the door where no cars would be parking…

Ben arrived with the bags of fiber mesh, so the driver threw them in the mixer, plastic bags and all! I was a little surprised at that, but our neighbor (aka Bob) said they would be in little pieces by the time the mixer was done with them. So we have little bits of plastic in our slab…

The concrete was laid, and the work of finishing came. It rained the day before, so the drying time was really, really, slow. So slow in fact, we had time to break for lunch, which is a rare thing when you’re pouring concrete. I don’t know if I just took a huge bite, or if I am about to explode. The latter never happened, so I am guessing I took a huge bite…

It was taking so long to dry dad could even recline while finishing…

We had a little extra concrete, so Bill and Nic made some forms for stepping stones…

Dad and Bob worked on making the stepping stones for the kids to decorate…

I said kids, but Ben and I decorated our own stepping stones as well. I guess we are still kids at heart…

This is what the first pour looked like at the start of the second pour two weeks later…

The truck arrived once again for the next section of the slab and the two walkways, this time with the fiber mesh mixed in…

Dad and I worked on spreading the concrete with the rakes, which is not an easy thing to do…

We got some help from gimpy (aka Ben)…

After the concrete was poured the viber-strike was brought out. This tool pushes the rock in the concrete down and brings the “cream” to the surface. The only downside is that it shakes the operator to death. I think I suffered several small concussions by the time everything was done…

I thought I would throw this picture in just because it is so random. Everybody is doing something just a little different in this shot, plus the handle of the jitterbug (tool that I will describe in a minute) in the foreground. Very random…

The next step was the front walkway with the flowing curve. Here is a just before shot with Matthew…

And here is a just after with nobody…

Here is the other walkway in our side yard. Nothing fancy, just kind of straight and simple...

This next tool that I am using pretty much does the same thing as the first tool I was describing, but it doesn’t require pre-mix gasoline. It does require the operator to slam it into the fresh concrete over and over again, which in turn pushes the rock down. It also splatters the person with concrete which is a downside…

This last picture is of gimpy (that name was given to him by a deacon at church by the way… you don’t think I would be so mean as to tag him with that do you?) trying to prove that he can do normal things by lifting a 14’ 2x4. He did a great job lifting that piece of wood! Now if we can just get him to a point where he can swing a pick again…

After all was said and done, I was sorer than a sore person after that sore person had done something really sore.

Thank you all of you concrete workers out there! I appreciate all that you do to make this world a cleaner and less muddy place!!