chuckography

SPRING and my traditional Easter favorites.....

 Yes, it's Spring and Easter is just days away.

I shot this sign about 15 years ago when I first returned to Charleston.

I was renting a neat 800 sq.ft brick house, tucked in the woods down a tree-shaded dirt road, on James Island.

During the 4 years I lived there, I became good friends with the owner.

Each year he participated in his church's "drive through" celebration of Easter by supplying many sheep and goats.

One year, his animals were attacked by a pack of wild dogs and he had the sad task of burying them. The church decided not to have its annual event that year.

The other image I post this time of year is a cartoon I found online.

Very timely.

And funny.

I always feel bad about not giving credit to whoever created it and just noticed a credit at the bottom left. Duh.

(Never mind. That is just a company that makes t-shirts with images from many places. Not likely the source for this funny maimed duo.)

This year I had planned to actually buy two chocolate bunnies, alter them as pictured in the drawing, and post MY own version.

But, my diet does not encourage me to eat candy so maybe I'll do that next year.

It's also the time when Charleston azaleas burst into color.

Well, the timing is the dicey part.

Maybe it's climate change.

Or just shuffling dates around to balance Easter, the Bridge Run and Flowertown in Summerville.

Summerville moved its date up a week but not sure if Mother Nature was consulted.

That was held last weekend and my flowers are just starting to really bloom and look great. But, I also planted some of mine to be more than just pretty.

Several are finally beginning to "hide" the outside HVAC system by the side of the house.

I keep the bushes pruned so there is adequate ventilation for the mechanical unit.

My yard has flowers that are dark red, deep purple, delicate pink, and brilliant white.

My task of "gardening" is to do absolutely nothing else - other than trimming AFTER the blooms fall off.

The various bushes just continue to grow and bloom every year.

Whenever they decide it is time to do so.

I'm just the pleased observer. LOL.

Another sign of Spring would be new construction.

The house behind me has been vacant for more than a year and I assumed it eventually would be torn down.

I learned it was built in 1939, the same year I was, so it's not that the house is old.

Just rather small at 934 sq.ft.

Instead of a crew coming to knock it down, they arrived this week to add on an additional bedroom and bath.

I had not seen up close the steps involved so I had my camera handy.

First, a backhoe was brought on a trailer and the deep 3-sided trench was dug for the foundation.

One guy dug as another measured width and depth of the hole.

They had done this before I could see. Working together as a team.

No water pipes were hit nor gas lines. Whew.

The orange buried cable for the TV dish was carefully removed.

Later the reinforcing steel bar (rebar) was added and, the next afternoon, a huge concrete truck rumbled down the dead end street next to my house.

This truck carried a load of 11.5 yards of concrete and it took intricate, skilled movements to avoid oak and palm trees and overhead wires and cables.

The goal was to place the concrete in the trench and then men with long-handled paddles would "pull" it around to evenly cover the rebar to a certain depth.

A few neighbors joined me as the process was going on.

It's hard to ignore a truck that large, making rumbling, grumbling noises as the mixture was stirred in the slowly revolving tank .

The pouring was completed and the truck reversed its moves and trundled off, tank still turning around and around.

The next day, a large crew showed up with several truckloads of cinder blocks.

A large wheelbarrow was filled with a combination of cement and sand.

As water was added, it was all stirred together into a slurry of the right consistency.

This mortar would be used to hold the blocks in place.

Never having worked with either brick or cinder blocks, it was interesting to see many men at work, being precise but working quickly before the "glue"  dried out too soon.

(Click on the photos for more detail.)

There is an old song called "Cement Mixer, putty putty" but it would be more precise if it were called "Concrete Mixer, putty putty."

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Labels: 11.5 yards of concrete, azaleas, backhoe, concrete vs cement, corndogger.com, HVAC, mortar, rebar, slurry, two maimed chocolate Easter bunnies

posted by chuckography @ 2:46 PM