Root Cellar

[Edwin]

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This is a picture of me digging in the Cellar. I am getting closer to having all the digging finished, and I will be glad to see the end of the digging!

[Edwin]

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This is the path going down into the cellar where I have been carrying the buckets of dirt up out of my cellar hole.

[Edwin]

Well, I am down to the wire on my cellar digging! I have just 4 days left including today to get it finished by August 1st, when my son-in-law wants me to have the digging finished. The reason for that is that winter is coming and we need to do concrete work, and mortor between the cinder blocks before the weather starts getting cold. I am so close to being finished, but with the hardpan and rocks the going is very difficult and slow. I started using a sledge hammer and a wood tree chisel to break up the hardpan into chunck, which actually will speed up the process, but I think it is harder on my body as I have to work bent over a lot, and the vibration on the hammer handle is harder on my hand that loses feeling than the bar, if that is possible. Well, I will work hard until the end, and hope for the best. If I am a day or two late it will probably be okay anyway. So, we will see what will happen!

[Edwin]

I am sure some of you think I am obsessed with this subject and I am. This is the third year I have been digging in this cellar, and in a few days I will be finished digging. My son-in-law wanted me to be finished digging by the 1st of August, but I am not going to make that goal. The digging is too hard, and I don't have enough time left to get it done, but within a couple of days after that I will be finished. Then I will need to dig a trench for the footing, which will be easy, and I will then need to start laying cinder blocks which will be easy compared to what I have been doing. My son-in-law will be working with me some, but I will be doing most of it myself. It will be a pleasure to have the construction of the walls, the stairs, and the doors completed before winter sets in! Then the water system will be in that cellar, and we can put potatoes, carrots, beats, or anything that we don't want to freeze in the winter, and keep cool in the summer. Carol may even go down there, sit in a chair and read, when it is really hot in the summer! Or if our heat system would fail we could go down there in the winter to keep from freezing to death!

[Edwin]

So close, but yet so far would describe where I am at in my digging now. It is impossible to predict how my digging progress will go because it all depends on how hard the hard pan is, and the way the rocks are set in it. Most of it has gone slower and has been harder than I thought it would be. I worked all day removing a chunk that I thought would take me an hour or less! I just have a little digging left, and it seems like that is going to go faster than some, so I may be finished with my digging tomorrow, or it may take me a day beyond that. This is my third year digging it. The first year I got a late start, I think in August, and I stopped digging about a week before I went to the Philippines in 2010 because I was over stressing my body, and having knee and shoulder problems, and I wanted to be able to walk and sleep while in the Philippines, and that worked great; I was fine. Last summer in June I had a physical malfunction in which I started bleeding internally, so I lost all summer, and didn't dig until after I had seen the doctor, and heard him say I was okay, and would live longer! This summer I started digging the end of April, if I remember correctly, and I was supposed to be finished by the first of August, but I missed that deadline, but I will probably be finished tomorrow which is August 3rd, here in the USA, so that will be close enough. Then I will move on to pouring the footing and doing the block laying, which I have never done, but I will learn quickly. Then build the stairs, and put a roof and trap door of some kind over the stairs, and that should about finish my cellar/mini basement! I will be glad to see this project finished, because it has been so hard!

[Edwin]

Well, this evening at 6:45 p.m. I finished the main part of the digging in the cellar. I now just need to shave off a little at the bottom of the walls in a couple of place to make them plumb. I also need to move some dirt around on the cellar floor, and use the rake to smooth out the floor, so that it will have a gentle slope towards the drain. I could dig the resevoir a little deeper where I am going to fill with rocks for a drain for excess water to go in case some ends up on the floor, which shouldn't happen, but if it does it will have a place to go. Next is digging for the footing, which will be easy as most of it will be where I filled with dirt to level the floor. Then pouring the footing, and start laying the blocks is what is next, which I have never in my life done, but I am sure I can do it!

[Edwin]

This evening my son-in-law and I built the forms for the concrete footing, and laid the blocks around to see how it would look. It will be 7 feet wide and 155 inches long. He is talking about using the tractor to lower the cement mixer into the cellar so that the cement will be mixed where we are going to use it. We are going to work on it more Monday. I am glad he is helping me with the construction of the walls because he works at a building store, and he has some good ideas, so I am going to help him, and let him plan this part of it. He thinks it will go pretty fast, and I am glad to hear him say that!

[Edwin]

Well, we did prep work that Monday, September 3rd. Then I did some more prep work the next few days of that week as well as attending a funeral, and going to the county fair. To be honest with all of you I was kind of dreading today because this is the day we were to pour the concrete for the footing, and working with concrete is hard work. We wanted the cement mixer in the root cellar/basement hole, but it is far to heavy to take down. We were going to lower it with a tractor, but we didn't think we should get that close to the edge with a heavy tractor. We took the cemenet mixer apart and carried it down in two pieces. The drum/barrel that mixes the cement was the heavy part, but we got it all down there. We carried all the 80 pound bags of premix cement down there as well, and I was really tired after we did that, but I recuperated after a few minutes of rest! We started pouring cement this morning about 9 a.m. and we worked steadily until 2 p.m., when we were completely finished with that job. It was not as hard or bad as I thought it might be. My son-in-law ran the mixer, and I carried mixed cement in 5 gallon buckets, usually about half or three-quarters full. A full bucket is far to heavy, for me anyway as my back is not extremely strong. I have to be careful not to hurt it. So now the footing is finished, and it needs a few days to cure, get hard and dry before we start laying blocks on it. One more step in the sequence of building the root cellar is finished!

[Edwin]

After my son-in-law got home from work we laid out the blocks on the footing, and did more measuring to make sure everything was square. We carried some three 80 pound sacks of mortor down in the the cellar. After he went home I removed the forms for the footing, and got a few things together that he will use tomorrow to get started. He will build a box to mix the mortor in and do a few things like that, as they don't go to church. Anyway we have a good start to get ready to lay the blocks for the cellar wall!

[Edwin]

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Yours truly is wearing the plad jacket and ball cap. My son-in-law is wearing the black stocking hat. We are working hard! My son-in-law has gained enough experience to be able to lay blocks faster now. The other motivator is that we are having hard ice freezing weather already, and the pipes to the pump and away from the pump are not protected from freezing. I built a shelter over the pump and pressure tank and put blankets over the pump as well. I should take a picture of the shelter I built, and I think it took me about 3 hours or maybe less; I can't remember keeping track of the time. My son-in-law said that I should build something so I did!