POURING CONCRETE ON A HOT MAINE DAY ON WOOD PRAIRIE FAMILY FARM. We began pouring at 7am this morning and finished up our work by 230pm.
Because our local Redimix supplier is running short of Concrete Truck Drivers, we had been on an 8-Day waiting list to get today’s 33 yards of Redimix delivered in three trucks @ 11 cubic yards each.
It just happened to work out that today was a hot day in a hot week in the mid-80s. During our cool Maine August, we had ZERO days that even reached 80oF. Only once before – in 1972 – has that ever happened in an August since weather records began to be kept at the Caribou Weather Office back in 1939).
To add to our fun, Trombley Concrete is using a new & improved cement from the Dragon Products mine in Thomaston. The new cement is “more sticky” that the old formula. Between the hot Sun and the sticky-cement, the concrete set real fast today and we had to work extra hard to keep up.
In this photo, Megan mists the Redimix to keep it workable. Caleb (straw hat) in sweat-drenched shirt is running the Power Screed. Adam (left, blue t-shirt) and Justin (right) work their concrete rakes ahead of the Screed.
In the background are killed rows of Organic Seed Potatoes awaiting their turn to get dug. Beside them is a colorful ‘Beneficial Insects’ Flower refuge which all-season-long offered protection and nourishment to Beneficial Insects which prey upon economically-damagng Potato Pests like Potato-Virus transmitting Aphids
Concrete done, tomorrow we go back to digging Potatoes.
Cale, Megan and Jim
