Hard Stuff

Steve, the owner of the concrete company, does this the 'Grandpa' way (his word, not mine), by pouring the concrete down a tube, into a wheelbarrow and schlepping it over to the work area and dumping it out.

By the way, Steve, no slouch in these matters, says that when the trusses are up the house is one-fourth done. He predicts we'll be in by December. FEMA willing (my words).

Before . . .

I was mesmerized by this whirling, silent laser beam that the guys used to test the level of the poured concrete. It only took about 3000 snaps before I was able to capture the laser light on an adjacent block of wood.

And after . . .

I noted that Ann spent an unusual amount of time observing the intricacies of concrete pouring. So I decided to investigate and uncovered, shall we say, the root of the problem--this tanned, rippling young man trying to do his job avoiding the drool of a middle aged onlooker.

Here the punk stamps concrete.

We have been trying to preserve as much of the old house into the new as we can. Ann's father used this symbol on his birchbark projects and here we incorporate it into the front porch.