27 June 2018

Doing a reverse spin on Murphy’s Law, Chree and I did not take her car down to Brandon yesterday afternoon to drop it off for a scheduled brake job, figuring that would ensure that Long Ridge would get started on forming the barn concrete slab first thing this morning.  Sure enough, Larry Kaufmann called at 7 to say he and his crew would be here in an hour.  So Chree and I scrambled to get her car down to the shop.  On the way back to Fern Lake, we picked up a young lady hitchhiker (yes, in Vermont, people still get about with their thumbs).  She wanted to go up to Brandon Gap to continue her through hike on the Long Trail.  Thinking we didn’t have enough time to drive up there and back, we dropped her off in Goshen and hurried back to the house.  Big mistake!  If we’d driven the extra distance, Larry would have arrived early.  Because we hurried home, he and his guys (Kyle Cram, Karl Kaufmann, and Ryan Sweeney) didn’t show up until 9:30.  By just after noon they had installed the concrete forms for the barn thickened edge slab, put down an anti-moisture barrier of 6 mill poly, laid down a layer of 6″ steel mesh, and put in two runs of #4 rebar (reinforcement for the thickened edge).  Knowing that the building footprint had moved somewhat (again!) when the forms were put up, went out after lunch to verify that the electrical conduits still were properly located.  Good thing I checked!  Moving the building meant that each conduit would have come up through the concrete precisely under a wall stud… a big no-no.  So spent a half hour wrestling the conduits into positions where they will protrude into the wall cavities exactly halfway between studs.  Oh, the joys of being your own building designer!