Day 48 Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Progress. Two walls done. To attach the house itself to the foundation, I mortar anchor bolts in place every 4 feet along all the walls in the top course. This is how the house will attach to the foundation. The sill plate will be bolted down. The first floor and the rest of the house are nailed to the sill plate. I fill the cells of the wall below where the main beam will go with cement. This helps to transfer the load of the floor and roof to the foundation and footing.

Here's a tip. When you ask the Mud Queen to mix you a batch of mortar to fill 4 cells, don't say it will take about a bags worth of mortar or she may think you said it will take a bags worth of cement. A bags worth of cement is 80 pounds. It gets mixed in a 1 to 3 ratio with sand. That makes 320 pounds of mortar. I only needed enough to fill 4 cells. That's 2 blocks. We had some extra.

11 hours, sunny and nice around 75.