BUILDING NEWS: Renovation Update October 2014 - Floor concrete pour and first 10 Horse Art Center resident!

These footprints tracked along the carefully prepared floor of 10 Horse Art Center can mean only one thing.  The concrete workers have arrived!

At 7am on a chilly and wet morning the concrete trucks rumbled down Black Creek Road headed towards the day's mission.  Project Manager Justin had temporarily removed the existing exterior walls of the Center to allow the massive chutes from the concrete trucks to get inside the Center.

Pouring concrete has to be one of the quickest, fastest but most important jobs of the renovation.  As soon as the concrete hits the ground it starts to heat up as it's curing (called "burning") and must be swiftly moved into position with rakes.  We're lucky and proud to have a local, and union, company handle this delicate work.

The concrete comes off the chute so quickly it's like an unstoppable lava flow of water, gravel, sand and Portland cement!

Once the concrete is down long, flat rakes are used to even out and smooth the surface.  Not an easy job while standing in heavy work boots in what feels like mucky quicksand.

The finished pour.  The concrete will cure for 24 hours and will be carefully watched to make sure everything sets properly.  This is only the first pour since at least 4 more trucks of concrete will be need to finish the job.

But the day before concrete, 10 Horse Art Center's first resident appeared!  A single rooster, coming from an unknown location, settled down inside the open building.  Since we didn't want our first guest to get harmed during the concrete pour, Project Manager Justin, who named the rooster Rockafeller, quickly whipped up a temporary shelter.  Now we'll have an official morning wake-up Cock-a-doodle-doo call for all the artists to come to 10 Horse to start creating!