The Great Wall of Atlanta

What an exciting week!

On Monday they stripped the curved retaining wall. 

I had a neighbor ask me if it was going to have a bay window on top of it.  That would be really cool, but it's just a garden wall -- not part of the house at all.  It's the uphill side of the flat spot where our virtual pool will be.  Until the pool becomes a reality, we will have a wonderful flat grassy spot.

The curve came out really well.  Apparently it's easy for curved walls to "blow out" with the weight of the concrete.  The crew was very pleased.

I think the back of the wall looks really neat.  Too bad it will be buried in the dirt.

There was no time to admire their work, though.  The inspector was already lined up for the next day, so they got right to work with the foundation walls for the house. Gary the Builder supervised from on high.

Some of the rebar configurations were so complicated, they almost looked like sculpture.

This bit here will add a little extra support for a slab.

When the pumper truck got there, these fellows were finishing up the forms for that complicated bit.  It was a real scramble.  I wanted to yell, "All hands on deck!" but they were already looking at me funny, so I kept it to myself.

They went ahead and started pumping concrete on the opposite side while those last forms were being put in place.

Nothing like a deadline coming your way spewing concrete from its maw to get you motivated to finish the job.

Closer and closer came the concrete belching beast...

Meanwhile, check out who had the remote control.  I'm probably hopelessly out of step with fashion, but the white sunglasses, huge earrings and backward baseball cap didn't seem to go together.  Am I just out of step?

And speaking of missteps...

Back when they were working on the curved retaining wall, I thought I had figured out why it was taking so long,

but when I saw them dismantling and cleaning up the final walls, I realized that carrying all that equipment down into the hole and back up again was really the reason it took so long.

By the end of the week, the lot was all cleaned up and our beautiful concrete walls seemed to stretch out forever.

Eat your heart out, China!