Just Bricks in the wall

Last month was a winner in that I hit a milestone on making my property more than a junk yard with a view. The concrete for the cabin footer was poured. One win is not a streak so I decided to go for 2 and build the basement walls this year. I had just finished multiple trips to get all my Styrofoam blocks on site when the blog post deadline reared its ugly head.

Well that head has popped up again and here we are. I have to say that I wish that “31 days hath September”  was how the poem started but there is no arguing with the Pope. Time to quit procrastinating get tapping.

Fox blocks are like styrofoam Lego blocks for giants. They get stacked up to form the walls of a building and are then filled with concrete. Pretty easy stuff but the second time goes smoother than the first and this was my first. At first, I was planning to just go the old school mortar and brick route. It would have been back breaking and probably result in some pretty curvy walls. On the positive side, I could work at my own pace instead of under the stress and chaos of a pour day. Luckily, I mentioned the plan to the inspector and she said the engineering called for poured concrete and I needed a  letter from them to change to concrete blocks. A quick call ended up with an offer to redo all the engineering for a large fee plus a delay of several months to go through the approval process again. Back to pouring concrete.

I didn’t have enough concrete forms for the walls so I needed to buy some more at $50 each as well as the clips to hold everything together. The cost shot up pretty quickly and that didn’t include a truckload of Doans pills for back pain or the future Chiropractor costs.

Sorry for the long and rambling tale to get to why a grown man was playing with Legos.

The Fox Blocks went up as easy as advertised.  As I was walking backwards admiring my work. I nearly tripped over a pile of rebar. Rebar that shouldn’t have been there because I bought just enough to match the engineer’s drawing. Then I realized that I only put rebar every 16″ and it needed to be 9″. Not wanting to get a failing inspection, the only solution was to tear everything down and start over. It only took a couple of days.

The pour day came and went with the usual chaos from the drivers getting lost and me having to go out and find them while my friend did the work of 2 (or 3) workers. My inexperience with the intricacies of the concrete blocks resulted in some blowouts and a piles of concrete on the wrong side of the forms in a few places. It was fixed on the fly and everything worked out fine. But it is a hard couple of hours.

Here is a youtube video of all the concrete work……

Beyond the cabin work, I have been working to clear some of my land of wildfire fuel and am getting close to finishing up the 2 acres the feds will reimburse me for my hours spent on the effort. I went out to finish up a section the other day and came across a hornet’s nest the size of my head. I don’t know how I missed it the day before because I had cleared all around it. I covered up as much skin as I had clothes for and grabbed it in a plastic trash bag. They were pretty angry about the situation but I caught most of them in the bag with only one sting. Turns out I am not allergic, whew.

I have added some new pictures to my photos page if you are interested.

+So in short, the season is over. Time to start cleaning up, packing out and locking down. I have some ideas for the winter but haven’t spent any time firming up.