When we last reported, all the boys on the construction site were treed on ladders and scaffolds and various contraptions that we’re just not going to mention to OSHA.

A lot has happened since then.

Johnson Equipment sent the crew to install the dock leveler. We’re pretty excited about that because it’s the final touch that will allow us to stop unloading trucks like a bunch of slaves dragging blocks up the side of a pyramid.

Kendra's boy Clark works for the boys from Johnson Equipment

The Fast Boys from Morrell Construction finished the siding, roof, and interior walls. Doc & crew poured another ocean of concrete on the west side of the building… and we missed taking photos of all of it. We just started backing up trucks and moving things in.

By this evening, Stephen the Electrician was finishing up the ‘lectric.

Lights! Camera! Action!

Now we’re ready to make a hell of a mess in the store.

Memo’s Painting started today by scraping up petrified carpet glue in the former stock room/future new part of the store.

Frank & Memo swab the deck

Tomorrow, the wall comes down and the new shelves start moving in.

W00t.

We must have just missed the baying hound because, by the time the Focker Paparazzi got to work, all the boys on the building site were treed like a bunch of raccoons.

The crew from Judy’s insulation hung the soffit outside.

The height of fashion for well dressed eaves

Inside, the Fast Boys from Morrell Construction started hanging the million dollar OSB ceiling….

Big Game: Waylon & Michael. Treed.

… while the boys from P&P Plumbing ran gas lines, just in case we ever decide we want heat in the warehouse.

Rich & John do their amazing bobcat impersonation. Crowd goes wild.

Today’s episode of “Fun on the Construction Site” was mostly about connecting the new warehouse to the mother ship.

It’s not that we don’t enjoy getting Clark the Focklift stuck in the mud every focking time we need to drag in a pallet. We love that. Kendra, Forkerfocker in Chief, has taught us some interesting new words and there’s nothing we like better than widening our vocabulary.

But, sometimes, you just have to give up a little fun in the name of efficiency. Today, Doc and the Dons started work on a part of the project that will help us do just that.

Don the Don hauls gravel while Donny the Don and Leroy rake.

The Fast Boys from Morrell Construction hung siding until the siding ran out. Nobody was surprised to learn that the Fast Boys actually out-ran the production of the siding manufacturer. Now we wait for the factory to catch back up.

Close quarters with Michael & Waylon

The boys from Common Sense Cellular spent all day dragging ladders around and doing the military press with bundles of cable.

Hey, Ceiling Cat? Can you get a paw on this?

We are getting a signal--clear evidence that there is intelligent life Out There.

Tomorrow, the Grand Poobah of Johnson Equipment in Little Rock will be coming to inspect the site, rub his chin whiskers and give his blessing for Friday’s installation of the dock leveler.

W00t.

We thought all the noise we’d been hearing came from people setting off early fireworks but… no. It was the Morrells breaking the sound barrier as they continue to build the warehouse at Mach 1.

We’ve discovered that it’s hard to catch the Morrells for a photo-op. Tracking their work must be a lot like being a physicist over in Geneva, Switzerland–trying to take pictures of quarks at the Large Hadron Collider.

Like quarks, the Morrells move too fast to be photographed in action. The best we can do, mostly, is to photograph their trails.

We did catch a few moments along the way:

Cladding the Roof

Putting up the siding on the fake ground created by Donny, the Don so that the Morrells wouldn't need 75' scaffolds.

Yep. That’s about it. All we could catch in action.

The roof is done. The siding is mostly done. Now, we suppose, the Morrells will spend the couple of days it will take the electricians and plumbers and Dan, Dan the HVAC man to rough in… doing what? What can the Morrells do in two days? At the rate they’re moving, they could probably remodel the Great Pyramid and still have time left over to paint new pictures on the walls.

Stephen the Zenmeister Electrician is clipping along too.

Jessie & Stephen conduct a summit meeting regarding the dock leveler diagrams

What Stephen likes to call “The ‘Lectric” will be roughed in early next week. The dock leveler will be installed next week. Dan, Dan the HVAC man came by with a proposal to heat and cool the warehouse because, he figures, it will be store space before long. He is right. He knows how we get.

Doc and Crew finished their part on the west side… which was a project that involved oozing the game of Focker Chess onto Bobby’s property next door.

It was a wall. The last wall on the west side of the building. But, problem was, the lane to the loading dock wasn’t yet seasoned enough to take the weight of a concrete truck.

Well… we all know who the mother of invention is, right? Necessity.

Wheelbarrow v 2.2... with our eternal gratitude to you, Bobby Dale, for being such a patient neighbor

Don, the Don, fills the dock wall with a bucket and a teaspoon while Leroy prepares to finish and Stephen pauses in his 'lectric ruminations long enough to look on

It’s getting to the point now where we can almost taste the fried chicken at the barn-raising party.

Jan is already working over Waylon the Fast Boy’s grandmother to bake the pies.

Stay tuned…

By the time all the Fockers & Fockerettes got to work this morning, there was an obelisk in the back yard.

Mysterious Focker Monument: Evidence of an advanced civilization.

Doc was finishing up the almost done/nearly last part of the concrete on loading dock lane.

Doc... at the point where we all realize that the concrete guys have poured 50 million yards of concrete and we have yet to sign our names in any of it

Out back, the Fast Boys from Morrell Construction had nearly half of the roof trusses done.

Mountain goats set the trusses; pit crew moves the scaffolds.

Setting the roof trusses was a swift, efficient, fear-producing, nail-biting operation.

The crane operator set up outside the building. With all the construction materials, dumpsters, recycling containers and gawking Fockers on the ground, plus all the power lines overhead, the crane operator only had about six inches of working room.

Zero margin for error

Inside the building, some Morrells guided the trusses with various contraptions involving 2×4’s and rope while (amazingly) managing to avoid knocking the other Morrells off the two-story roof into the 20 foot ravine below.

Whew!

And the Fast Boys at Morrell Construction set the last roof truss at high noon.

Don't blink or you'll miss the Fast Boys. Whoosh!

It’s been “Roast the Contractors” Week at Focker’s. There is simply no other way to describe this week’s weather except, “hot.”

Barbarously, ruthlessly, relentlessly… “Dude, I think your camel just passed out…” hot.

Not that the small matter of being sentenced to hard labor in the blazing inferno has slowed the regularly scheduled game of Focker Chess.

While all the Fockers have been unloading trucks, loading trucks, and moving merchandise around and around, the Morrells have been sizzling away, putting up the sixteen-foot walls out back.

Sean demonstrates a building site so hot you could fry a Morrell on it

Doc and crew have been poaching like a bunch of six-minute eggs out on loading dock lane.

Need a little ham to go with those 6-minute eggs?

By the end of the week, the Fast Boys at Morrell Construction had all the warehouse walls framed up and the building is ready for the next step: The part where the gigantic crane comes on Monday to set the roof trusses.

Still life with roof trusses. Ready for all Hell to break loose.

The longest day of the year, Summer Solstice, started at six this morning.

The weather has been typical for late June in the Ozarks… as in… nearly indistinguishable from the instructions on the back of a pack of cake mix: Preheat to 350 and bake. So the Fockers and Morrells were all milling smartly about at daybreak.

By 8:00 a.m. or so, the truck was unloaded out front; home, garden, housewares and electronics were scattered festively ’round the parking lot; Jan and Kendra had set up an employee break room/satellite executive suite out front between the ice machine and the Big Focking Monkey; and the Morrells had made visible progress on the warehouse out back.

Jan and Kendra conduct a top-level strategy meeting

Wall One: Up and Away!

Shortly thereafter, the daily game of Focker Chess began in earnest.

Doc & Kendra demonstrate the Parade Wave: Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, touch pearls, wave, blow a kiss.

The Fockers moved merchandise and trucks and customers and carts around and around (and around) in the parking lot while Doc & crew tied rebar on the side of the building and the Morrells hammered merrily away out back.

Construction Porn Stars Tie Rebar on Loading Dock Lane

By the end of the longest day of the year, a full truckload of merchandise had been assembled, priced, picked up and put down somewhere else (at least nine focking times–as is tradition;) Loading Dock Lane was ready to pour; and the Fast Boys at Morrell Construction had the east wall of the warehouse framed up and were running for the southern border.

Turning the South Wall Corner

Doc and crew started tying the rebar for the slab on Thursday.

Step One

By the end of the day, the first mat of steel was done. There are actually two mats of steel in the foundation but the second one was done on Friday so it’s not pictured because all the Big Focker Paparazzi were attending the regularly scheduled Friday afternoon safety meeting at Henri’s.

We told Doc, “Hey, Saturday is all our day off. Just tell us what time to show up with the beer.”

“One.”

So, by the time we called in the order to Mr. T’s pizza and showed up with the Budweiser and Shiner Bock, this is what we saw:

Buff boys buffing

The crew started at 6:30 am, under the watchful eye of a couple of visitors from the motel next door. By 2 pm, when the job was done, the crew was done in.

Trail's End

Kendra assumes the position while Jan & Pam do laps

Next week, Morrell Construction will start putting up the building while Doc & crew roll on with the loading dock.

Now we’re really rolling.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….

All the Focker’s have been spending a lot of time hauling heavy things around (and around and around) in the hot sun while the construction project continues. Among the many exciting things that happened since we last tuned into the Focker channel:

Shack V 2.2 got a lovely Hansel & Gretel-style door:

Nibble nibble like a mouse, who is nibbling on my house?

Seriously. If there is a more ridiculous door on an industrial building out there somewhere? Send pictures!

Lately, we’ve been calling the construction site our “ivy covered cottage,” what with all its rebar picket fence and Hansel ‘n Gretel door.

But, hey.

Harrison Overhead Door gave us a great deal on an abandoned special order. If you’re in the business of giving people great deals, whadda ya gonna do? [insert shrug here]

There’s been too much Doc & Leroy running around in the hot sun/grade beam action to adequately illustrate here but we are now at the point where they’re ready to pour up the loading dock.

Don, the Don, digs the truck dock

Mostly, it’s like going to work at the Grand Canyon every day. It doesn’t do to walk out any side or back door at Focker’s these days because every service exit heads off a cliff.

But, after all the months of planning and engineering and city meetings, it’s getting real now. Clearly closer to done. We’re getting itchy to go shopping and fill all the new spaces up.

Stephen & Jan ponder 'bout the gravel pile

As usual, lots of things happened on the building site while All the Fockers were too distracted to take pictures. This whole unloading trucks business is really cutting into our Construction Porn blogging time. But… work continues.

Outside, Doc and Crew prepped and poured the first two grade beams.

Moon Over the Southern Border

Inside, the Fast Boys from Morrell Construction finished up Shack v 2.2, the
Freakishly Fast Girls from Shewmaker Painting put a lovely finish on the interior drywall and Stephen the Zenmeister electrician hung the fixtures. So we’re ready to start hauling stuff around in preparation for the store expansion come Sunday.

Outside progress on the warehouse is stalled by our traditional Ozark Monsoon Season. It’s raining cats, dogs, pigs, and enough chickens to fill a Tyson production line for the next 52 years.

Donny, the Don, is standing by with a wide selection of really big Tonka toys…waiting for Doc to say, “Go! Dig the next big hole.” Or waiting for the Ark to float by. Whichever comes first.

Donny. Standing by.