Now that the exterior new construction of our Big Doins project has been completed, it’s time to start bringing the kennels back together … well, almost.  There is one more step to complete first but it’s not construction so much as destruction.

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Robert Gann and his assistant, Terry, put in two days of hard work this week.  Okay, okay, I’m sure they put in more days than that this week, but two of them were here on Piney Mountain.

On Wednesday, Robert and Terry set up the forms and partly filled them with gravel.  One corner of the slab will be 14 inches deep!  This is because of the slope of the land where the pad sits.  They pulled back the gravel around the edges so concrete will go all the way to the ground around the outer edges.

On Thursday a front-discharge concrete truck trudged up my steep driveway and wiggled in to disgorge its load through a nose shoot like a great mechanical elephant.

These amazing trucks are popular in this area because they are all-wheel-drive, so they climb slopes like a mountain goat (albeit a fat, heavy mountain goat) and they have wide tires that help them navigate unpaved roads without getting stuck or rutting up the surface.  In fact, my driveway is now smoother than it was because the wash-boarding done by UPS and Fed Ex trucks as they spin tires has been mashed down smooth again.  Bonus!

Then Robert and Terry set about making it smooth and pretty.  That took the rest of the day as they tooled it with floats and formers, waited for the concrete to set up a bit, then finally put a light broom finish on it.

I asked that they not make it too rough because dogs will be pooping on the slab and I need to be able to clean that off the concrete to keep the environment sanitary — but I don’t want it to be slick when wet so that I risk falling and hurting myself.

The slab turned out well.  The only glitch in the process was when the wind picked up and blew Redbud blossoms all over the concrete.  Robert said, “No extra charge for the decorative concrete”, but then set about trying to remove them with a leaf blower.  In the end it was a losing battle because the breeze kept blowing more onto the wet concrete.  That is a minor problem and I’m not bothered at all by it.

I’m pleased with the outcome.  Robert will be back in a day or three to remove the form boards, smooth out some of the  damage to my driveway, (it was muddy up near the slab) and move a little rock around for me.  I appreciate all his hard work and look forward to getting started on Phase 2 of this project.

As the next step in our Big Doins kennel renovation, I spent the afternoon yesterday pulling out the remaining kennel/fence panels and cleaning things up.

I started by spraying the cinder block wall with green gunk remover (AKA bleach water).  I let that set for about a half hour and power washed the wall.  That took care of the green gunk, mud splatters, and some of the paint.

While I was waiting for the bleach to work its magic I pulled out the remaining kennel panels that had been serving as fencing and gate.  This also cleared the wall for cleaning, since the rear panel hit the wall four feet in from the back.corner of the garage.

I have to be careful now to remember that these panels are gone.  I have been allowing the dogs to follow me into this space when I went in to work there.  But now that it’s wide open all dogs must stay behind the Krazy Fence unless leashed.

While I had the power washer out and gassed up, I decided to clean up the dog houses too.  I used my Concrete Weasel tool, which swirls a single jet of high pressure water to blast dirt and gunk from a surface.  My friend, Willard Overstreet, introduced me to this tool during a church clean-up project and I had to have one.

I’m sorry about the strange picture: I forgot about the vibrations the Weasel makes when I mounted the camera to the wand, and the camera’s shake-canceling software did strange things with that. But you get the idea.  This thing works really well even on a small power washer.  Put one on a commercial grade washer and it will strip paint!

When finished I set the dog houses aside, along with the kennel panels, where they will be out of the way, and hopefully stay clean until needed again.

All impediments have been moved out of the way, the block wall cleaned, and the foundation timbers dug up.  We are ready for concrete.

Since we have had some nice weather, Mr. Gann should be gaining on his back-log of work and our job should be creeping up on his Jobs To Do list.  All I can do now is wait.

John K, Mike R, and I have been discussing roof construction, materials, and costs.  But I can’t do anything about that until the concrete slab is poured and cured.  Once we can walk on the slab I *could* start on the roof, but since I don’t have the money for materials yet, I’ll go ahead and cut down the kennel fronts and assemble the three kennels on the slab.  That way I can open up for fostering again.  We can work above the dogs when the funding is available.

That gets you up to date.  The final step in Phase One will be the pouring of the slab.  See you then!

As part of the Big Doins at Piney Mountain, I moved Lennon’s kennel today.   This was Phase One Step Three.  Not that that matters.

The thing is that this kennel could not be taken apart and moved one piece at a time.  Noooooo … this one had to be moved fully assembled (except for the 4×4 timber foundation, those I moved separately). Blondie and Lennon supervised.

If it were possible to get three other people with sound shoulders and strong backs who could all show up here at the same time (that’s the hard part) we could have each taken hold of a corner and trundled the thing around to its new spot in a matter of minutes. Sort of like this but on a much smaller scale:

But I don’t have such a labor force, so I did it by myself and it took all afternoon.

It’s moved now, and tied down on its foundation, which I put under it again once the kennel was where I wanted it. I need to get a few bales of wood chips to put in there to keep Lennon out of the mud when it rains, but otherwise it’s good.

And, the work area around the slab is cleared.  Well, almost.  Now that Lennon’s kennel is moved and the Krazy Fence is buttoned up tight I can take out those last three panels and clear the work area completely.  That will take less than an hour … but I’ll do that another day.  Today, I’m tuckered out.

We want to avoid going into debt with a second mortgage to pay for this project so we’re taking it on as we accumulate the cash to pay for it. If you’d like to help us speed that along, your donation would be greatly appreciated. You may make a donation on-line with the PayPal button below or you may mail a check to: