A Culvert

As is very common in this house, this project went from a small (10 foot) weekend project, to a ginormous (36 foot) 2 month long project.  We are trying to build a driveway for the construction trucks to get to the back of our house to build the add-on.

Everyone helped dig, compact, level and pound things.

As if we didn't know already after years of hauling many wheelbarrow loads of rocks out of our garden, we know what it means to live in a glacial plane.  Yes, we need a sledge hammer to pound in the rebar.

I didn't mean to take a picture of her just after she hit her finger, but many of us had similar bruises.... especially as we got more and more tired.

Finally, after much hours spent getting everything just right we were ready to pour concrete.

Miriam showing off what is left of our 120+ 80 pound bags of concrete.  Yes, we lifted those off the truck, onto the stack and then again as we were taking them to the concrete mixer.  Man, were we tired.

So far so good.  The west end.  We are developing a system.  Alina fills buckets of water.  Caleb, Kristina, Anastasia (sometimes) and I hauling the bags of concrete from the road to the mixer, while Keith opens the bags in the mixer.  He pours the mixed concrete into wheelbarrows and he and Caleb pour into the forms.  I do the trowel work while Kristina and Caleb once again start hauling bags to the mixer again.

Our beast, is old and rusty as the hills, as loud as standing by a jet engine and a total life saver.  It holds 15 80 lb bags of concrete.  Never did we appreciate it so much as when it quit working about 2/3 of the way through.  Caleb, Kristina, Alina, and I mixed 2 bags of concrete at a time in the wheel barrow while Keith worked his electrical magic on the mixer.  We were never so happy as when we heard that roaring sound again!

Anastasia helped haul some bags (weighing more than she does) and counted empty bags and buckets of water making sure that we had the recipe right.

Jonas tried to help but with all the concrete dust flying around he had to have a couple treatments and we finally sent him in to avoid a trip to the hospital.

Miriam kept Elijah and Ryah busy in the house and out from under foot.

We worked from 7:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night without hardly a break.  (We did have a banana once).  Other than a few grumbles at the begining the kids didn't complain once.  When the last batch was mixing I ran down to buy a couple pizzas while Keith finished up the last of the trowel work.  Then we spent until 10:30, 11:00 cleaning up. 

We were never so happy for Christmas to come.  Besides enjoying a peaceful church, taking turns playing Santa and having a great Christmas dinner, it meant that the concrete was DONE!!!!!

And how did you spend your Christmas Eve?