February 8

 

The Ben Report (written on Feb. 6)

By Benjamin

Here are some of the things we’ve done since last Monday.

I’ve been up twice already in an airplane with one of the instructors. When we took off, it felt

strange for about a minute, and after that it was the most normal – and fun – thing ever. For

the first flight, I was in the rear seat, which isn’t as good as the front because you can’t see as

well, which makes flying more difficult. On the second flight, though, I was in the front seat and

did most of the flying. We practiced climbing and descending, holding a steady turn, stalling the

airplane (which basically means flying so slowly that the aircraft “stalls” and falls out of the sky),

and finally some takeoff and landing practice. It was a lot of fun.

 

In terms of what we worked on this past week, Grandpa and I put two steel posts in the ground

to protect two air conditioner units outside a building from parked cars. We put the posts in the

ground and put ready-mix concrete around them. We even filled them up with concrete to

make them extra-strong. When that was done, we spray-painted them white. I think there’s

also talk of putting reflective tape on them to make them more visible.

 

We have also been getting ready to pour concrete. We’re planning on building a 12-by-16-foot

storage shed, so we need a concrete pad for it, and we also want to pour two 30-foot-long

sidewalks. The concrete is supposed to be poured tomorrow morning (Tuesday) at 10:00.

 

Finally, we found a hibernating rattlesnake in an open storage shed. Someone was cleaning up

in there, and when they turned over a big wooden box, there it was. Fortunately, it was still

sleeping, so one of the guys killed it with the shovel. We’re told to look around a bit before

entering a shed like that, because there could be a snake lying around.

Pouring the cement for the storage shed on Tuesday.

Pouring a sidewalk.

On Wednesday, George, Ben and Joe went to Sierra Vista to pick up a huge load of lumber and supplies for the storage shed.  Thursday morning they took the forms off the pad and backfilled around it, and moved all the other dirt away.  In the afternoon they started framing and got all 4 walls up.

The sunset this evening was quite lovely!