More And More Bricks

Like I said at the end of my last post a mixer paddle in the cement mixer broke and was going to have to be welded before we started this morning. So this morning I went out and started to take out the broken mixer paddle pieces. To my surprise I found that the second mixer paddle had also broken away  from the bottom mounting tab. So with that I pulled both of the mixer paddles and their mounting tabs. Then it was on to cleaning them up, aligning them and welding them together. Just to be on the safe side I added a little bit of reinforcing weld on the 1 mounting tab that had not broken. Then I remounted the mixer paddles in the cement mixer. I had to run some errands and we ate a late lunch after I got back.

I ran a bunch of straw through the shredder also and filled a large black contractor trash bag full of the shredded straw so I wouldn't run out. Yesterday I ran out of straw on the last batch. I had just enough for the batch but, that was it. So today I shredded more to make sure that I wouldn't run out.

So by the time we actually got started it was about 3:30 PM MST. Since we (Charles, Jason and me) had all been working yesterday and all day today we decided to mix and lay up bricks for about 2 hours.

So here are all the bricks laid up from day 1 and day 2. In total we've laid up 262 bricks. Yes I know my boys can't lay bricks down in a straight line. We've honestly only worked on laying up the bricks for about 5 hours total between both days. That's an average of over 50 bricks an hour. Not too shabby for just 2 of us at any given time. I've been running the mixer and setting up the mixes and either Charles or Jason have been laying down the bricks. Maybe we'll spend a few more hours laying up the bricks next time. It should only take 1 or 2 more days to make all of the foundation bricks.