Today the crew poured the cement for the new retaining wall. This required a lot of lead-up: yesterday much time was spent securing the clamps on the molds and making sure everything was just so. It's a bit like a puzzle fitting everything together, as you can see more clearly in the second photo below. Today they were visible from the office windows as they attached scaffolding platforms and tested the mixture coming out of the pipe. At first it was watery (sort of like ketchup before you shake it up), but once they got the right consistency, they lowered into place and away they went!
They use quite the contraption to get the cement into the very specific spot where it has to go. The distance the cement has to travel before it is released is quite significant! Before anything came out, the pipe shook and rattled and convulsed for a good thirty seconds until it had something to show for it.
The picture above gives you some idea of the height of the wall. It could also be the lead-in for a joke: How many construction workers does it take to pour cement? If you answered three, it's a trick question - there's another guy operating the controls from the truck!
Inside the new addition, they have been laying plumbing pipes under what will soon become the floor of the first level. That was a bit of a puzzle too, since there are different sections of pipe and glue to put them together. It's something that definitely needs to be done right the first time, since soon enough it will be covered by a thick layer of cement! This morning they were re-burying the pipes and tamping down the earth. They hope to be pouring the floor next month!
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