The Concrete Truck Cometh

Any time there is a large piece of equipment at "the site" we have to stop by for a look and bring the camera. Today, we learned a whole lot about...



...concrete mixers! And also pumps, because, you see, while the mixer mixes the concrete, it's the pump that does the tough job of getting all that sludgy stuff up the hill to where it can be easily poured into those lovely molds that Charlie's men so lovingly built (I like to think they do all the work on the house lovingly....leave me to my fantasies!). In the picture above, the pump is the blue thing and you can see the hose the concrete flows through snaking out of the bottom of that squarish, funnel-shaped thingumy (I'm certain that's the technical term for it).

Another thing you might not know about concrete pumps is that they're very loud, and this one pumped four trucks worth of concrete in about 4 hours, which means I'm pretty sure I can't call the cops and complain if, after we've moved in, one of the neighbors hosts a rock concert in the middle of the circle.

Noah and Charlie (the contractor) talked...



...and talked....



....and talked. I honestly don't know which one found this more interesting.



Also, they posted for pictures, more or less.




For me, it didn't get much more fun than watching the spraying of the concrete into the molds.




Mmmm.....fresh concrete!

Noah was pretty interested too, but seemed a little worried that it wasn't being done the way it was supposed to be (point hose at mold, spray! What's to go wrong?)



It went very quickly! They finished up pouring all the foundation while we were there. By the next day, it was dry enough to remove the molds.