Blog

Well,

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In case you were lacking some way to while away the next few minutes, you’ve been rescued. If you’re about as busy as I am, it’s probably just another thing to try and get done. Either way, we’re all here just now.

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A couple of days ago, we began to build the frames for the door and window lintels. If you’re like me, you’ve not given much thought to lintels in your life, or maybe not even recognized their existence, but the next time your standing in a doorway under the mistletoe, just know it’s the lintel that holds things up so you and your beloved can smooch in safety.

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And these basic wood forms is how they begin, when you’re building in stone and concrete.

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Yesterday evening, Gilbert and I were standing on the edge of the dam. We had pumped the last tankful of muddy water out of it…it was dry, for the first time since it filled last Easter. I told Gilbert to call the bowser guys and order a truckful so we would have water for construction today. A pretty expensive proposition, all in all. This is a pair of muddy gum boots, mine, in fact. This morning they got muddy because last night, without warning it rained hard for three hours and the parched ground drank it up until it couldn’t drink anymore, and then…

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it began to flow in the dark night into our dam, for the first time since last Easter. So this several weeks supply of brown, muddy water looks like Lake Tahoe to me, beautiful and wet and remarkably timely. But, back to the lintels.

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We paint the boards with used motor oil so that the concrete won’t stick to them. So we can use them again.

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The basic form is nailed into the stone and then set with supports underneath.

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Every door and window gets one.

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And then the premade (by Opyo) sides of the forms are nailed on to form a level, straight trough.

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and it begins to look like this.

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Y-8 rebar is bent into rectangles and attached by binding wire to lengths of y-12 rebar,

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to form the steel reinforcing structure

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which is placed in each of the lintel troughs before it is filled with concrete.

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We wire on small uniformly sized cement blocks which we have previously made to keep the steel at the right height in the trough when the concrete is poured. Which we will do tomorrow.

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Not everybody thinks this stuff is so exciting.

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And meanwhile, the sun keeps rising and setting on the just and the unjust…you go on ahead and figure where we all fit in…and I’ll just say good night for now.

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Good night for now,

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David