Thursday, April 16, 2009

Clean Undies

Low of 46 - High of 93. Not sure which feels better....the end of the day after a job well done - or the morning after. A good nights rest after a long day is the icing on the cake, I reckon. Lately I have been waking up just about the time the sun hits my curtains on the east side. Best alarm clock ever invented.












Stripped the forms off yesterdays pour and all was well. Not perfectly beautiful but should withstand the test of time. One thing folks don't seem to do out here is water down the concrete a couple of times a day after it's been poured. I make a point of doing it as nothing is better for a good hard cure than a little drink a couple of times a day for about a week.

Wasn't quite ready for another long dirty/sweaty day in the sun so I headed down to Study Butte to do 2 loads of much needed laundry and fetch 125 gallons of water for my drinkin' tank. The clothes dried on my solar dryer in about a half hour. Nothing like an interesting photo to top off a rather mundane day.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

John,

I know that you stated that you are building a greenhouse but I don't see where you are going with the containers. What is it going to look like when finished?

Rich

Bob O said...

I think that the watering will help the concrete cure to a more steady and durable state, particularly if the ambient temperature goes over about 92 degrees F. I'd have to check the specs, but, as you know, concrete/cement generates heat as it cures, so in order to ensure avoiding a brittle set to the pour, it has to be kept cool. Hence, the watering. It's not really to keep it wet, it's to keep it cool by removing the heat generated by the curing process through evaporation. When we poured mud in Alice, we'd actually put a a lawn sprinkler on top of it and let it run, when we had the water. Other than that, we'd monitor it for 48 hours and if it was dry, we'd spray it down.

I like the way you're integrating the containers into the landscape, and especially the care you've taken to align, level, and distance them. This will pay off big time in the long run. Good work, level and true!

pwp said...

Hi John, I love the picture of the solar dryer. The depth of field is PERFECT!!!

Porter

PS. We're still missing Terlingua time.

Carl in Houston said...

didn't they have a bicycle driven clothes washer on gilligan's island? they made that but they couldn't fix that little hole in their boat... :O)

Anonymous said...

Wow! If I get up at 8am and wash clothes and get them hung right away, they're mostly dry by 6 or 7pm.
AND THIS IS THE DRY SEASON!

Florida, by the way.