Concrete pour complete

 Started pouring the concrete at 8am this morning.  A pump truck makes this whole process easier; delivering the concrete to precisely where you need it.  In this case into the top of the forms for the wall, and to a slab behind the barn. 

 The first step is to get the bulk of the concrete into the form; here my brother Bryan is directly the hose and filling the form.   He's standing on a scaffolding we constructed along the inside of the form to allow us to get to the wall easily; both for filling and for later work. 

 Here WB and Virgil are using the stinger to remove air pockets and compact the concrete in the form. 

 Out back is a slab on grade.  I desperately need some place to work on equipment like tractors, that doesn't involve me laying on my back in the freezing mud.  Very  happy to have this slab go in.  For reinforcing mesh for this slab we used an old roll of fencing that I found on a property I purchased recently.  It was galvanized 48" no-climb fencing, but had been sitting out and run over by equipment and was in pretty poor shape.  But for reinforcing mesh it worked great. 

 View from the inside of the barn.  the floor in the foreground was poured a few weeks ago and is the slab that contains the radiant heat tubing.  Out under the blue tarp is the new slab, and it's surrounded on all sides by the new walls we poured today. 

On the top of the walls are the brackets for the 6x8 beams that will hold up the roof, and bolts that are inset into the concrete to bolt the wood to the concrete foundation.  The bolts are primarily a seismic issue.  We do have earthquakes here from time to time, and having the building bolted to the foundation means that it won't slip off in the event of a major earthquake.   It's overkill for a barn, but I'm building to last, and the bolts add around $80 to the total cost of the building, so they're well worth it.