The Folly Of Man

It seems rare these days that the word literally is used correctly so in my attempt to save the English language, here you go….I am happy to say that I literally have nowhere to go but up from here.

I mentioned in my previous post the inspector gave me the go ahead to pour the cabin footing. A short lived success because the concrete company’s site inspector came around and said, Hah, not so fast and left a list of chores that needed to be done before his trucks would roll in. I had to cancel my scheduled concrete until I smoothed out the road and cut back the brush that had narrowed the road to compact car width. Definitely not wide enough or smooth enough for a tubby 80,000 pound mixer truck.

I rescheduled the concrete for two weeks out and went to work. I started by pulling the road scraper with the tractor in the hopes of lowering the highs and raising the lows. It is late in the season so the road is hard as concrete now. I was mostly just successful in bending the heavy steel teeth that are supposed to loosen up the top layer. An accomplishment that surprised the dealer when I went in to get a new $200 set. He had never seen that before. Of course, he wasn’t surprised enough to replace them under warranty which was kind of my hope. With the free option taken off the table, I am going to wait until next year or and see if I could find an industrial press in town to flatten them out again. The road is flat enough.

Then I walked the 1 mile road with the chainsaw, pole saw and hedge trimmer to cut back the more egregious flora. Walking a mile with a chainsaw is tough, turning it on and cutting stuff down the whole way is a career path. One I (and my back) am glad I didn’t follow. It’s the kind of job that you think you have finished until you drive through it again and see a missed bush or limb. Its how do it yourselfers end up with a bad haircut.

Up until the day before the scheduled pour, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. The mix truck drivers are under no obligation to deliver if they are concerned about access. They can nope right out at any time, turn around and head back to the factory for a long coffee break while they fill out the invoice for the full amount. I finally got a call the day before to confirm the pour and I was comfortable putting the saw away. The next morning, my friend from Seattle, came up with his son, his dad and his son’s friend to help with the pour. Somehow I got the long straw and was charged with guiding the trucks in. I didn’t get into the mud until the very last truck. It goes quick, one truck every 30 minutes, so as soon as I got one truck in and set up, I had to leave and get the next one. It went well

Here is a time lapse I made of the fun morning.

Walls are next. I want to get them poured this summer so that I can come back and get busy building. If I have to wait, the heavy mixing trucks won’t be able to get back here until July. Seeing as how it took 2 months to get the 2 foot high footing forms in place, 8ft high walls were not looking any quicker.

I have decided to get a great big Lego set instead. Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) are Styrofoam blocks that get stacked up and filled with concrete. They are expensive but only a little more than the thick plywood and connectors needed for the old fashioned way.

I found a supplier a couple of hours away that had enough in stock to meet my needs. All the other closer locations were at least 2 to 3 weeks out so I went with a bird in the hand and bought them up. He was willing to drive them over for another $1000. I decided to take a break and pick them up myself. I hitched up the trailer and headed out into the desert that is central Washington. I was expecting Ikea like packaging with assembly required. Nope. They were all put together a more air than ICF. The supplier stacked 4 pallets in the trailer and played Tetris to cram as many as possible in any remaining trailer space and the car. I was a big wind break riding down the road. I took 2 lane roads back home rolling slowly with the hazard lights on to give all the other drivers ample warning that they were coming up on a tightwad idiot. The 2 lane idea let me drive slowly but the other drivers were under no obligation go slow. The wind wall from trucks would blast into my Styrofoam tower and shift the upper layer over to a precarious lean off trailer. I had to stop every 10 minutes to push the cubes back upright. I stopped in a small town and bought some angle iron and more straps for the corners to prevent the shifting and it worked pretty well.

But there was still an issue. It wasn’t that the radio was broken on a Salsa Music radio station at full volume but pretty close. We crammed as many ICF blocks into the back of my car as we could. The Styrofoam was rubbing together creating a relentlessly annoying squeaky sound that only Styrofoam, At least fingernails on a chalkboard only happens once before the lesson is learned, This went on for the entire 6 hours slow drive home. Since I couldn’t get the entire load home in one load, it went on for the next 2 trips I had to make. Almost made me want to start drinking again. But calmer heads prevailed and I am still beer free with a mini Legoland in my front yard.

I don’t get over to the high desert side of Washington. It is wine country and quite nice. Lots of wine tasting rooms to take the squeaky styrofoam edge off but I decided to go to church in the small town of Zillah. The Church of God – Zillah to be denominationally precise. I didn’t go in because of the risk of a lightning bolt. But around back, that’s where the fun is…..

Between concrete pours and long squeaky drives, I have stayed busy trying to finish my wildfire prevention land clearing. More chainsaw work. The public lands above me are getting their own wildfire work done but they have full-on logging equipment; monster chainsaws, noisy and clanky tractors and diggers. It is fire season so they have to stop in early afternoon and sit around for an hour to watch that they hadn’t sparked a fire while working. To get anything done, they start a 4am about 100 ft from my pillow. The 100ft doesn’t matter really. I have been hearing them all summer long as they worked their way towards my property line. The proximity of late just means that there is no hope of sleeping past 4. Just as well, I time is running out before the winter winds start blowing again.

There was a huge snow storm last winter that dumped 4 ft of snow in a few hours. It was too much for my trailer cover and snapped some rafters. The roof held but it won’t make it through another storm. I have been procrastinating the effort because I have to move the trailer and stand on the top step of the ladder which the sign on the ladder says isn’t a step. It was 44 degrees last week so time for procrastination is over. I don’t know how well my patching will work but I there is always hope for a light snow year.

It is the last day of August and the Sun is up. Time to get this posted and get busy at Legoland. Thanks for reading.