oh concrete ye will nary get the best o' me

this specific concrete that is. ok-so last night was the night to see if we (brad) could break up the concrete enough so we (brad) wouldn't need the jack hammer i was going to rent. i had an idea of what to do with some of the concrete chunks. i am recycling them to make a flower bed wall. they have a rustic flare and lots of edges. and frankly i don't give a shit. what else was i going to do with the concrete pieces? i have sink holes but i really didn't want to fill them in with concrete and my other option was to throw them out into the woods.


i get home, change clothes and head out to start putting the big concrete chunks into my new red wheelbarrow. that i of course cover with thick plastic so the concrete wouldn't scar my new red wheelbarrow. anyway, i soon find out that there is of course a wire mess sheet underneath the concrete. after a lot of hitting and smashing from brad we realize that what we really need to do is remove the wire mesh and then just maneuver the concrete pieces around so we can set the dek block underneath all the rubble. cause that's what it's going to be. rubble. i mean look at it, thousands of rocks. we both vote to hide it.


a little into the job brad has to leave, before he goes i try out the sledge hammer. not to bad. kind of fun. got safety glasses. (i did have brad take a picture but it was staged and didn't turn out good) while he is gone my goal is to pull up the wire mess embedded in the concrete. which i did. i am proud to say. i was exhausted and i could barely lift the sledge hammer but i did it.

the wire is NO longer embedded into the concrete. there is still concrete attached to the wire, but as brad says "no problem, take a sledge hammer to it". which i plan on doing tonight.

to recap-in the beginning my intentions were to remove all concrete from the area so the dek block could set on the earth. now after the destruction and the realization that there is way to much rubble the the rubble will be moved around to accommodate the block. brad and i are too lazy to really clean it all out. and since a deck will be going above it it sounds like the perfect solution.

i need to add that after a good 30 or 40 minutes welding a sledge hammer, not constantly of course, that i only feel pain in the sides of my lower back. and even that isn't to bad. i have a splinter that is causing me more pain.