Before we could put the cement mixer to use we had to drill the holes for the piers. The piers being the foundation for the small out-building that we had hope to get weather tight before Fall of '08.
Yeah, it didn't happen. The water tightness, that is, and well, the building in general.
We did get the piers put in though, and what fine piers they are too!
All 10 of them! Okay, so there was supposed to be 14, but we thought we'd forego the piers for the porch. We can always do them later.
The fact that we came away from the experience with 10 piers completed, and ourselves relatively unscathed, (outside of a couple pulled muscles) was darn near miraculous.
(You thought I was going to use the word glorious, didn't you?)
The cows came by to see what all the commotion was about, just in time to see us loading the auger back in the truck, which took place out in the front meadow, away from the actual building site.
Unloading and loading that gangly, awkward, heavy piece of machinery is a story unto itself, but with strong straps, a come-along, and the culvert in the front meadow, we got 'er done! Wish we could have got it unloaded/loaded like the folks at the rental place did. They just used a forklift and dropped it into the back of the pickup.
I almost forget to mention about getting equipment like augers out in the middle of nowhere. We rented it for a day from a place just across the border in Arizona. All in all, we made a 300 mile round trip to do a few hours work with that piece of machinery.
Guess that's one of the trade-offs for living out in the middle of nowhere, which is still, I think, the best place on earth to be.
And thank goodness for help! Bill's niece came out from Atlanta for a week to see what the T-Square Ranch was all about. What a trooper! And being the first to come out and offer her assistance, she garnered a small bit of the ranch for her very own. And when we get this building weather tight, it will be named, "Elizabeth House" in her honor. Yes, Liz...it will.
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