Back at the Bolt Hole

The trailer inspection was uneventful. It passed without a hitch. (No pun intended. It had a hitch, of course, or I wouldn't have gotten it to the guy who inspected it.)

The trip up to the Bolt Hole did take an hour longer than usual but that's to be expected when I had to stop for gas (twice) and lunch along the way.

I believe I surprised Mark by needing only one pass to back the barge...I mean trailer...into the barn. Sure, I needed to make one adjustment at the gate to the property but then--ZIP!-in she went. And it's not as easy as it sounds. Try running a trailer through a slalom course...backwards. The barn and the gate do NOT line up directly so it's a matter of backing through the gate, veering to the left (as you go backward), and then to the right to get the trailer lined up to the barn door. Trailer, hitch, and truck are about 48' long and the distance from the gate to the barn door is about 75' and the offset of the two is about 30' so it's a bit tricky. Mark's presence made it easier in that I didn't have to get out of the truck to see what my clearance was on the back wall of the barn now that there's a freezer, fridge and stove in there.

I found that Mark and his buddy had made some great progress in rebuilding the "foundation" to the porch. Using lots of concrete and mortar, a few sonotubes and some of the stones that were part of the old construction, they built a much more substantial wall than had been there before. There's still a section that needs to be leveled (ran out of mortar) before the porch itself can be constructed, but Mark should be ale to do that in no time at all...he's a professional. He's also still waiting for the union to find him a job that's more than one day in duration and is, therefore, still hanging around which means there'll be little rest for me on this tour at the Bolt Hole!

Newly reconstructed "foundation" for the porch.

The corner pier--the most important as far as bearing the weight of the porch and house roof-- seen to the left took nine (9!) bags of concrete and it doesn't even go more than three feet into the ground. But it does sit upon a big boulder that is at the base. The rest of the stones came from the original wall and all have at least one face that was flat enough to form the front. The other piers aren't nearly as important in regards to weight bearing and were created using tubes smaller in diameter.

In addition to leveling a portion of the wall between the two piers to the right, there's still the task of filling the void behind the wall. Some of the smaller debris from the old wall can be used to do that. It'll be my job this morning to sort out the smaller stuff and fill, fill, fill.

They also did some impressive shoring up of the floor in the basement. Photos of that later...maybe.