Drove up to Talkeetna in the morning - found a rideshare buddy at the hostel - Joshua. Very nice guy, gave his life to Jesus, but didn't preach about it and we had a nice 2.5 hours of chatting.
Got to my home around noon and Tim came by a bit later to help me get started with the back-fill process. So, first, I had to work on the 4 corners, because they were the most important ones to line up right. The cabin plus porch is going to be 16 x 20, so the foundation is laid out at 14 x 18 feet. a² + b² = c² so the distance between opposite corners was the square root of 14² + 18² and that came to 22.8 feet. And it had to be pretty much exact.
Lining up the footing and the sonotube was the hardest part. 22.8 apart, plus level all the way around, plus in line with the orange cord outlining the edge. The first one took me forever! Once everything is in perfect alignment, I started dumping the sand and gravel back into the hole, adjusting the tube anytime it shifted. Certainly, dumping the fill back in the hole took less time than digging it out!
Gradually, I got the hang of all the measuring, but it took me til 11pm, with a break for dinner, to finish just the four corners. I passed out exhausted in my tent and set my alarm for 7am, because the concrete truck was showing up at 2pm the next day and I had to be ready.
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