Here, there and everywhere

The weatherman promised rain today but thankfully he was wrong - right up to quitting time. Our crew was scattered through the worksite from one end to the other. I was welding rock armatures in the Western end of the park. Peter and Matt were polishing off the welding in the Wilderness Adventure.

Marty, TJ and Jack were wiring in the lower areas of the park. Jenessa and Sarah were applying the mesh to the upper reaches of the mountain. The mountainside is slowly becoming more visible each day as the mesh goes on. The planters take a long time because they need wiring both inside and out.

Hailey was back at the shop painting on the signs. Lots was done today but it was not a dramatic change because it was spread out over many areas.

Tomorrow I begin preparations for the concrete work to begin next week.

-grampa dan

Anchor man

Every crew needs an anchor man. Our anchorman is TJ, the youngest member of our crew. And at this point you are probably wondering exactly what an anchor man does on our kind of project. He installs anchors of course. Our welded armatures need to be securely fastened to the concrete footings or walls of the project. We need something to weld the frames to. TJ is our anchor specialist. He uses the concrete hammer drill to bore a hole in the concrete and then he pounds in an expanding steel anchor bold. He's been one busy guy too and has done almost 2000 anchors in the last week or so. Because of this he is well deserving of the honorary title of crew anchor man. Bravo TJ!!!

Elsewhere on the worksite the work continues at a quick pace. Much of the crew are busy tying on wire lath. Here is our newest hire Ashley tying the galvanized mesh on a planter. Tying wire is a real character builder and Ashley already is a better person because of her efforts.

The water wheel is now finished and so it was temporarily removed from the building so we could do the sculpted concrete work behind it. Here Chris signals the zoom boom operator to follow him to where it will be stored. It is one GIANT wheel!

The concrete slabs were poured through the Wilderness Adventure area yesterday. A thick, seamless rubber decking will coat the whole area when we are done our sculpted concrete work. The rubber decking will ensure kids are as safe as possible as they run and play in this area.

Work will continue all through this week on these jobs and more. The good news is that the on site sculpted concrete work will begin (at last) next week! Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

A pirate horse? Of course!

The design work continues for Skallywag Bay Adventure Park in Trinidad. Last night I was busy designing the kid's play activity area. There will be lots of interesting features for the kids to interact with and play upon. We will build a second pirate ship which they will be able to take to the high seas.

When the pirate ship is docked at home port they have lots of things to offload and distribute around the island. The treasure and booty would be undoubtably be very heavy and so they would need a sturdy mode of transport. A horse and wagon would be just the ticket. As I thought about the kind of horse and wagon a pirate would own I decided it would simply have to be a pirate horse. And being a pirate horse it would have a patch over one eye and a peg leg of course. I showed the concept to Sabrina and she suggested a gold earing in one ear would also be appropriate. So I added the required earing of course. The wagon behind the horse couldn't be an ordinary wagon either. A two wheeled cart fashioned from an old dingy was much more appealing.

A pirate horse? Of course!!!

-grampa dan