The Concrete Pour of 2010…well, one of the many.

I described my lovely Memorial Day a few days ago. You may know that I have spent most of my week basking in the sun–lakeside while being served dainty drinks and fed luscious morsels.

And when I say ‘lakeside’, I mean in my neighbor’s front yard.
And the ‘dainty drinks’ were more of hurried gulps out of the cooler that leaks water all down your front.
And the ‘luscious morsels’ were protein bars. But they were s’more’s flavored, so I guess that’s pretty close….
At any rate, we were ready to pour the sucker you see above.
And this was pretty close to a day at the lake.
(See how we got to this point over Memorial Day.)

The concrete truck arrived at 8am sharp, ready to unleash its mix.

Biceps was in charge of the wheel barrow and I was in charge of raking the concrete once it had been poured into the form.
Three words: Impromptu Shoulder Workout.

This my dears, was just the beginning.
Lots of raking, sloshing of concrete onto my skin, falling into the dirt hole around the forms, etc., was happening for an undocumented couple of hours. It was better left undocumented.

The pour is now complete-now on to the finishing!
After banging the sides of the forms with a hammer to remove the air bubbles, we lightly troweled the top to bring up the cream (the smooth watery part of concrete). Then we had a soda and let the steps set up while whining about our sore muscles. Superb marital bonding time.

This little edging tool was the next step. We went around the perimeter of the forms with the edger, bringing a nice sharp line to our steps.

More troweling, then edging, then troweling, then edging….You get the idea.
(That’s Bicep’s hairy forearm, not mine, mind you.)

After we were satisfied with our edging and troweling, the moment of truth came as we removed the forms.
Drumroll, please.
Will the steps mush out everywhere and become a soupy mess?
Or are they going to be rock hard and unable to be finished?
Are you as nervous as I was at this moment?
Doubt it.

No soupy mess! And not rock hard! Just perfect.
We filled all of the holes with our excess concrete, troweling everything until it was smooth like glass…and somewhere during this process, both of my arms fell off.
I had to do the rest of the work using a trowel held in my teeth.

Finally, we ‘broom-finished’ the steps and the platform to prevent people from slipping on the concrete when it rained. Aren’t we considerate?

And TAH-DAH! Aren’t these steps exciting?
Can’t you just picture yourself running up and down them, time after time?
Yelling at people from the top step while they are on the bottom step?
Or sitting on the steps enjoying another soda during a dream sequence?
Yep, me too.