The work continues...

Strip off the wood supports from the footings... remove all the nails...

Loads and loads of rock and gravel...

Next task:
Distribute rock and gravel inside of footings. Rich has already started on this huge task.

The boys, our niece Jennifer (age 8), and I were helping with this. We decided to pay the kids to help. They each earned enough to buy their way into movies to see Sponge Bob.

Footings finished!

Finished the rest of the footings today. Actually, we were done shortly after noon.

It went much smoother this time because we weren't worried about the footings blowing out.

What a nice day for cement work. It's about 60.

We had a little extra cement left over... so we ran down to our little house and put in part of a walk way to my back door. We'll finish that off in one of the next pours.

What a joy it will be not to have all that mud and dirt tracked into the house by the kiddos.

The Cement truck comes...

Oh my goodness...
Yesterday the cement truck came at 1pm. We were still putting together the footing that runs down the middle of the house....(thought we could get it done before 1pm!).

We poured the cement for the footings on the East and part of the South side of the house...
Helped came just in a nick of time to help us brace the forms... need I say more?

I could barely get out of bed this morning I am so sore and achy from yesterday! I'm not used to all that manual labor!

Today...
Brace... brace... brace... brace... the forms...

Lessons.

• Brace forms really good! Those wooden stakes are useless! (At least the ones we used!)
• Have the cement truck bring less than 12 yards the first pour... Brace the forms...
• Next time, if there is... a next time... or if anyone asks... Hire someone to do the cement work! Oh, did I mention... Brace the forms really good?

Our new house...

Here's what it will look like!

http://www.williampooledesigns.com/SearchEngine/results_Plans.asp?ID=187

Footing casings are level

Rich has spent the last couple days leveling out the footing casings. We're using this neat Form-A-Drain stuff.

I was joking with Rich the other day that he was just playing with big leggos. The forms go together really easily.

The plan is to order cement this week for the footings!