I
had been worried that 24 yards of concrete wouldn't be enough for all
the stuff I had going but when the second truck finished I could tell
that, if anything, I had ordered too much. I had a contingency
plan for where to put the excess in case I had any, but I could have
gotten by with two or even three yards less. You can see
that it isn't going to take 8 more yards from a third truck to finish
the job.
All full, although I took this picture before I had a chance to clean up the edge along the form on the right hand side. Luckily we didn't have any dirt cave in during the pour, and within the next few days I
plan to build a retaining wall along the other three sides (thus the
vertical rebar sections) to hold back the dirt for the long term.
Here is the crew that did
the patio slab and helped me with the tower foundation. They're
just a small local subcontractor (father in the middle, son on the
left, helper on the right), but they really knew what they were doing
and did a great job.
And here is the foundation the next day after I removed the temporary
wooden platform braces. Not really all that much to show at this
point for all that material and effort, but imagine the acute surprise
someone several years in the future will have when they decide to
remove "that ugly little concrete slab on the hillside" and find out
that it is almost six feet thick and contains more steel than is in
their car. <snicker>