I woke up today feeling like a three-year-old on Christmas Morning. For the first time in quite a while I was up before the sun; I was happy to be awake and excited about the day. I got to the property at 7AM and set up the generator and tools, sprayed down the forms, and got everything ready to go when the concrete arrived.

The first load of concrete showed up at 8AM; I was moving fast for the next 11 hours.

...you see the funniest things on construction sites...

This was my only really nervous moment in the whole pour, and one where I completely expected not to encounter problems - in the low wall forms. the bottoms of the 2x8 form boards weren't braced between the uprights, so it let the board twist under the pressure of the concrete, bulging out about an inch at its worst places. I can fix this... fortunately it just means a little more pressure-washer time at these spots to remove some more concrete as I do the exposed aggregate work. I'm learning a little more with each concrete pour; fortunately the learning experiences have been relatively painless so far.

A beautiful sight: almost 18 yards of concrete in a 9-foot-tall pour, staying (mostly) where it was intended to be. 

My volume estimate was very close to reality: these four 2-foot pavers were all that was left over after the forms were filled. That's pretty much a perfect pour: far better to go slightly over on the volume then slightly under... ordering a one-yard truck is embarrasing and expensive.

I couldn't resist stripping some forms after the concrete had set up a little... I'm liking what I see here. Also, it's nice to expose it while it's still pretty soft because it's very easy to clean up by chiseling the excess off around the bolts, between the forms, at knot holes, etc. 

Another view showing the top of the ledge. I'm happy with how this is turning out!

Then... as I was sitting there taking a rest and admiring my work, I remembered where I had seen this before. I had helped the City of Eureka with some forensic engineering to figure out why the little concrete "lip" on top of one of their building's foundation walls had broken off throughout the entire project... it turns out that a form board was trapped between the concrete slab and the concrete "lip", and that board swelled while the concrete cured and shrank, and cracked the "lip" off almost everywhere. Then I realized that is what was about to happen here... if I left it alone overnight, I probably would have come back to a bunch of beautifully-formed-but-broken concrete ledges. Upon that realization, I immediately switched from resting-and-recovering mode to form-stripping-like-a-machine mode and got at least one board out of each wall to relieve the pressure.

...and then it was so much fun that I just kept going...

...and going. I got most of the outside face of the low walls stripped today. Ready to break out the pressure washer tomorrow and expose some aggregate!

The usual end-of-the-day shot from up the hill. I'm excited to be making progress again!

For each of my pours on this project, I've gone into it expecting it to be a huge amount of work, and I've come away from it with a new appreciation for just how much work goes into concrete structures.