Cattle Working Facility – Part 2

(To see part 1, click HERE.)

We’ve got a lot done in the last week.

The re-bar was put into the concrete forms early last week:

After Gerald and Ramona built the forms, they cut the rebar to fit, put it in its place, and then wired all the rebar at the intersections. Then the rebar was put up on little plastic risers so the rebar isn’t resting on the ground but will be suspended in the middle of the concrete. It’s labor intensive and back-breaking work.

Then on Wednesday, the concrete trucks arrived to do the pour. When I got home that night, I took pics. Nothing prettier than brand new concrete, right?

On Saturday, Harland and I worked all day setting steel pipe posts. These posts are hollow steel pipes about 7-8 feet long, and weigh so much it’s all I can do to lift one end of them off the ground.

Harland dug each hole about 3 feet deep with the auger attachment on the skid steer loader, and then we both shoveled the dirt and rock out of the hole. There was a lot of rock and gravel, and even a few large rocks we could barely move.  Then Harland picked up the post and dropped it into the hole. I held the post vertical as Harland emptied four 80 pound bags of quickcrete into each hole. The dust…oh the dust…clouds and clouds of it. Then we sprayed water into the hole, mixed it up, and then moved onto the next post.

Early in the day it was in the 40s and I dressed in multiple layers to keep warm. As the day wore on into the afternoon and the temps rose into the upper 60s, I peeled several layers off. By late afternoon, I started adding the layers back on again. Periodically through the afternoon, I looked up the Royals baseball game on Harland’s phone to check on the score. (We’re Royals fans)

Finally, the sun set and the wind that had blown dust around us all day finally stilled. I checked on the Royals again and learned that they had won. Yay! We finished up and put our tools away.  Then we stood back and admired our handiwork. We had set about 15 posts, the majority of what will be needed for the project. We headed home, ate supper, took some ibuprofin, showered all the dirt and dust off, and sank into bed.

More concrete will need to be poured soon in the area that will lead into the tub. It wasn’t poured with the rest of the concrete earlier as this pour will go around some of the posts too, so we had to set them first.

Soon, we’ll put the alley and tub onto their concrete pad and bolt them to the concrete. What’s neat about this set-up is that if we at some point in the future stop raising cattle, we can unbolt the alley and tub and sell them.

More pics to come soon! Stay tuned……

(To see Part 3, click HERE.)

(To See Part 4, click HERE.)

(To see part 5, click HERE.)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo