Building update!

With a few days off (Thought it would be four but it turned into two) Had big plans to get work done on the driveway. Starting with a flat surface really speeds up the building process. Plus, I set a hefty pipe in the concrete for bending rebar later. This river of clouds stayed just below me so it was warm and dry.




















A short while ago I talked about the impromptu concrete day with Byron. I gave him complete latitude for coloring the concrete. I had time to strip the forms the other day; the color will stand out more over time. Basically I thought if the concrete isn't all one color it would blend in with the stones better.




















After stripping the forms, it was time to move stones. Zen and the art of stone moving---First, you need a reason to move them. Next, you have to make sure they even want to move. For some reason the smaller stones are much more willing to move than the big ones. They will move on their own but only downhill; most the rocks seem to be lower to start... After dry stacking the stones and getting all the rebar in place I planned to backpour concrete behind the wall about 1 foot thick. It locks them in place but still looks like a drystack wall.





















Unfortunately the hardware store in Julian was out of concrete. Didn't feel like wasting the day driving to El Cajon, and not wanting to waste the perfectly good protective layer of grime I'd built up on myself, got caught up on some wood splitting and stacking. A neighbor had a beautiful white oak come down. The wood's almost too pretty to burn. You can't tell in the picture but the wood stack goes back nearly 4'. This is not quite half what we'll burn in a winter. I have more than enough oak rounds over at the cabin, just have to do some more splitting.