Connor volunteered to help Wednesday night in the "digging holes" portion of building the deck. Although shortly after this shot was taken he asked for some work gloves. He told his father that this was a lot of fun, to which Jason replied that he sure was glad at least one person was having fun out there. :)
The process was pretty straightforward. Jas started the hole, and then Connor would measure to make sure it was 12" in diameter.
Next, Connor would dig the hole and fill up the trailer on the back of the four wheeler. Connor's shovel isn't nearly as long, however, so he usually only made it about 20" before he had to ask for Dad's help. Then Jas would come in with the post hole digger and finish it out.
They had all six holes dug before dark, and I took the wheelbarrows full of dirt and dumped them in various holes Trixie's dug. We took the trailer full of dirt and dumped it in Connor's dirt box.
Jas went to get about 1000 lbs of concrete from Lowe's Thursday afternoon, and last night we mixed concrete and filled holes. This process took a lot longer than expected for a couple of reasons. One, 30" was way too deep and we ended up having to fill the holes back in with dirt to about 24". Each hole was taking over 3 bags of concrete, and that was ridiculous. Two, the wheelbarrow we were using was very old, and isn't really the greatest thing to mix concrete in. Jas had thought about renting a mixer, but ended up not. If it hadn't been for the insanely strong wind yesterday it really wouldn't have been too bad.
He placed anchor bolts in the concrete, and rigged up these cool 2x4 supports to keep them level and spaced apart correctly. We worked for about 2 1/2 hours and finished all but one hole. Jas is picking up two more bags of concrete today and we'll finish the last hole tonight. His dad had two extra bags in the machine shed, but the moisture evidently got to them or something because Jas said they were solid. Oh well. Who doesn't love a trip to Lowe's at lunchtime? :)
The plan is to finish the concrete tonight after supper, and then all that's left is to buy the lumber and we can get to work. That new deck will be here before you know it!
