Cementing the deal.....

7:37 am - Saturday - December 14th - TWW - 33° F, humidity 44%, wind 6 mph out of the southeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2013 we installed our first nomad Christmas tree in the Newell.....

I promised in yesterday's post that I would focus entirely on the dual axis solar array, and get the rebar pounded into those bore holes I drilled a few days ago, and then get the cement poured, and that is exactly what we did Friday.  I cut 9 lengths of rebar using my Porter Cable angle grinder ranging from 11" to 12" long depending on how deep I got each bore hole, and then pounded them into each hole using a small sledge hammer, which I've carried around with us for 13 years.  Now I've finally justified its presence in my trailer all these years....lol....

Rebar pounded into the 9 holes

Rebar 'tied' together

TLE helping me mix cement

.....over a month ago I had Charles pick up eight 60 pound bags of cement from Home Depot, thinking I would use 4 for the concrete base of the solar array, and 4 for the wind turbine, however, this hole took 7 bags.....lol.....of the 8 to fill....that's 420 pounds of cement in the hole.  The original dimensions of the hole were supposed to be 2' x 2' square and 2.5' feet deep.  The actual size came out to 30" x 15", so slightly bigger on the surface.  I could only get the hole 13" deep due to the old concrete I ran into, which is at least 6" thick, as that the length of the new masonry drills, but covers a much bigger area underground.  After pouring 7 bags of mixed concrete into that hole I used a 20" length of 2" x 4" to level, and smooth it, and then a level to make sure the pad is completely level.....

This picture shows where the solar array pad is in 

relation to the rear of the trailer....we will move the shed to the far side of the trailer so it is in between the Newell and trailer once our new pad is built

......by the time we cleaned up the wheel barrow, and tools we used for the concrete it was after 1 pm, so I took a 30 minute break on the house deck to eat a snack, and just enjoy the warm sun.....

....before heading to my final project of the day.  You will remember that Charles and I strung new wire to close the open area in the fence by the water trailer, and grove of fruit and nut trees, so the cows could no longer ingress the area.  We needed to finish the vehicle gate to prevent the cows from pushing through, plus provide a gate which can be opened and closed as needed.  I decided I could do that in a couple of hours.....

....I've never built one of these gates before, but I've used 100's of them over the years, especially since we began working at LPG&RVR three years ago, and I had a good idea of how they are constructed.  It took me exactly 2 hours to finish it, and it turned out better than I expected.

By the time I put away my tools it was 3:30 pm, and time for dinner.  TLE made me a toasted meatloaf sandwich with a side of avocados and tomatoes lightly dusted with salt and pepper, a squeeze of lime, and a few drops of Vidalia Jalapeño hot sauce.....yum!  Delicious!  That's the great thing about TLE's meatloaf....you know there will be the initial meal, then one, or two meatloaf sandwiches in your future!

We did not have a sunset fire, but I did get out to take a picture of the sunset....now I'm kind of wishing we had had a sunset fire....

.....and thus ends another day in The Wilson Wilderness.  I'm going to let that concrete cure for 5-7 days before drilling the holes for the expansion bolts, and then begin assembling the dual axis solar array tracking system.

Thanks for stopping by!