04_2012 Concrete Pour and some Backyard Drainage Work

While we were in Joshua Tree (a few more of those blogs will be coming), the concrete was poured at the house. Happily Chris took some photos of it. Check out the size of the cement truck in the yard. It certainly explains where that chunk of Phlox went. :)  Pretty darn cool truck.

Here is how the rebar in the new addition is tied into the existing foundation.  It doesn't seem that this foundation is going anywhere.

This is looking down in the walls of the frame before the cement went in. There is a box that serves as a spacer  at the bottom. This allows there to be airspace between the walls of the foundation and the ground. The Helical (sp?) piers are what is really holding the house and addition. This space allows the ground to swell and settle without pushing on the house.

Here is the last view of the framing for the foundation. The cement truck dropped cement into these walls.

Lots of noise! Pretty cool - wish we could have watched it.

Now that the walls are poured, the drainage system along the walls is put in place.

And you can see the black?  That is the waterproofing of the walls of the foundation.

This next picture is actually of the backyard. For some reason, the yard was staying totally soggy when it rained. The crew dug up the yard to expose the sump pump pipe.What a sloppy mess especially considering we are in the midst of a nasty drought.

You can see that they extended the sump pump pipe to a corner of the yard. Here they dug down to more than 4' of depth (beneath the clay) and added a ton of gravel/rocks. This allows somewhere for the water to escape. There is now a sump pit there with a lid on it. I'll be looking for a rock or flower pot to cover it with.

New connection from the sump pipe to the extending pipe. Hopefully this gets rid of the sogginess of the yard and better feeds the other plants out back.

The windows and sky lights arrived today. Tomorrow the lumber arrives. Wednesday the framing begins. Then we are off to the races. Kitchen cabinets come on the 10th. The interior chaos is coming!

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04_17 to 22_2012 Climbing with R Accamazzo in J-Tree & the Fish Compound

One day we needed to swing by the FISH compound. While there, we visited with Medium Sooze and Dave got to see the workshop. It's half workshop and half climbing museum with lots of fun stuff around to look at.

We stayed until Dave got woozy from startvation. Mostly  because Sooze had a mystery bird in a tree we were trying to see. It skulked around silently but we did finally make an ID: Hooded Oriole. Really pretty bird.

It's where the magic happens! :)

We spent one day climbing with Rick Accamazzo. Felicia and Greg joined us later.  I can't remember the formation, but the hike - pure horror. It was all of 25 yards maybe. Luckily we brought enough water.

So, there is another photo of me climbing. Take a good long look - there are not many as I didn't climb much. My feet and the difficulty of the stuff we got on sucked the desire out of me. Still it was nice being outside and watching birds. Saw a Wilson's Warbler in a tree next to this route.

Before giving it up for good. It was already Sahara Hot!

Rick led this route with a slabby crux. Bleck.

Up he goes!

This was from the FISH compound but could have had some bearing on the day's climbing. :)

Bird watching...or something.

Greg enjoying some rare shade.

Dave before heading up on a pretty difficult climb. Fun day.

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04_17 to 22_2012 Portraits from the Gordofest

While in Joshua Tree, Dave took advantage of the gathering of so many awesome people to grab some portraits. This post presents the portraits from that event. Enjoy! Up first, John Long aka Large, and Jim Bridwell aka the Bird

Greg Opland aka Steelmonkey aka FAMOUS GUIDEBOOK AUTHOR!!!!11111

Felicia Terry, aka Felicia Terry

Hoss Julia, aka Julia White

Mr. E aka Eric Wolfe

Michael Jefferson, aka Ferretlegger

Tony Yeary, aka Tony Yeary :)

Mari Gingery aka Mari

Murf aka, well Murf

Dr. F, aka Craig Fry

Lynnie aka Lynne Leichtfuss

Dick Shockley

Me, aka Crimpergirl

Clarke Jacobs

Host, Todd Gordon, aka Todd aka Gordo aka The Mayor

Susan Peplow, aka Medium Sooze

Terrie Marcoe aka Happiegrrrl

Jude Bischoff, aka Mtnmun

Bob Gaines, aka Bob Gaines

Largo and Bridwell

Catharine, aka Gal

Russ Walling, aka the Fish

 Beck Gordon

Ed Sampson

Maureen and Medium Sooze

Rick Accamazzo aka Rockamazzo

Tony Bird aka Tony Bird

John Stannard

Lauren aka the Slender Anthropologist

Randy Vogel aka

Dr. El Jefe aka Jefe Bret Harte

James Barnett aka F10

Largo

Blitzo aka Blitzo aka the Bloot

Tucker Tech aka "OMG have you seen those feet?"

Dwaine aka Cosmiccragsman

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