It is Wednesday morning, June 13th, and Miss Jan's birthday. I fixed her a nice breakfast, gave her a card (surprise flowers came later at the office), and sent her off to work. Once again it was me and the shovel. I was in a time crunch for getting the site prepped because my slab pour had been moved up by one day. I also had to find a new crew for the pour because the guys I had gathered for Saturday have regular jobs during the week. I called a couple of guys (retired or self employed) from my Serve-and-Be-Served group at church and soon had a new crew. I was getting ready to excavate the 10" deep footer around the edge of the slab when Kevin called and told me he could get the cement, for a better price, but only on Thursday. Double YIKES! I quickly called my new pour crew. What a blessing these guys are. Without hesitation, they all said no problem.
Now I've lost two days of prep time, a big deal with my tendency to be slow. Those who know me best will confirm my Indian name, "Dances with Tree Sloths". I called Miss Jan to tell her our plight. When she got home at 6 p.m., I still had to dig about half the footer and lay in rebar and steel mesh, all before ten o'clock the next morning. Miss Jan changed into work clothes and jumped right in beside me. I swung the pick to bust up the dirt (which was slightly softer than rock) and Miss Jan cleared it out. Soon we were working by flood light. I told Miss Jan to go to bed, as I was going to have to pull an all-nighter. She said we were in this together, and we pressed on.
Finally the digging was done. I asked Miss Jan if she wanted to use an oxy-acetelene torch and bend some rebar for the corners. Her response was, "Really? You’d let me do that?" I grabbed a concrete paver to use as a 90 degree jig (I like tight tolerances). I showed Miss Jan how to light the torch and adjust the mixture, then how to heat and bend the rebar and quench with water. I watched her do the second one. This lady is a quick study and a wonderful blessing in my life.
Knowing she could handle it, I began laying out the steel. As you can see, we put in plenty of rebar. We worked all night, and dawn began to illuminate the eastern sky. By 9:00am our crew began arriving. At 9:30, we were still tying steel mesh.
Talk about overkill! Bill, having many years of experience with concrete, was tapped to be project lead. I asked if he thought we were ready, and he just looked around in silence, then said...."You learned this from Wayne, didn't you?" Bill, myself and many others helped Wayne build a guest house last year, and Wayne and I share a preference for overbuilding rather than just doing the minimum. With Bill's comment, I knew Miss Jan and I had done a good job! Site prep was finished with fifteen minutes to spare. The concrete truck showed up right on time at 10:00am.
