Fixing the Foundations and Resetting the Columns
Not much in the way of eye candy in this post, as it’s really focused on the practical side of maintaining all the stuff we’ve built over the years at the farm. Over the last dozen years, Mother Nature (in the form of freeze/thaw cycles) had lifted the foundations under the columns for the pergola and it had started to lean a bit, so one of our big projects for this summer is replacing all the foundations. We wanted to do it in a way that didn’t disturb the grapevines or wisteria, so we had to build a temporary supporting structure, and jack up the top of the pergola six inches or so in order to pull the columns out. Over the past few days, we’ve removed all of the columns and the old foundations and dug larger and deeper holes so that we can place new 16-inch diameter concrete footings. The forms were all backfilled with crushed stone now and then filled with concrete. As you can imagine we’ll have a good stone oven pizza party to celebrate when the time comes!
Enjoying the Finished Product
We finally finished replacing the columns on the pergola today! And what could be more appropriate than celebrating with a glass of wine and a bit of pizza from the wood-fired oven!
