We know that Doc is always respectful of customs and rituals so we weren’t surprised when Doc showed up for work on Cinco de Mayo–appropriately dressed in a festive sombrero.

The load of steel from Darraugh arrived shortly thereafter and Kendra did an extremely impressive job of getting the extremely heavy, long, awkward, wobbly bundles of rebar off the truck and on to the ground without nicking a single tree or bystander.

Kendra, Clark the Focklift, Doc & Donny

Then everyone got down to the daily game of Focker Dirt Chess–in this case, digging up the dirt that had just been put down for grade beams on the warehouse foundation.

Leroy & Donny dig the big ditch

All you need is a little Finesse

Chris obligingly poses for a Construction Porn photo

By the end of the day, the tomato cage orchard? Gone. Championship horseshoe pits? Gone. The building site was ready for a whole new game.

Let's play Whack-a-Mole!

The day began with a traffic jam as we continued the game of, “Let’s see how many large pieces of machinery we can wedge into a tiny bit of space.”

Then again, parking anywhere in Eureka Springs is notoriously problematic.

Typical Eureka parking lot

Drilling continued and, by mid-afternoon, the building site was a veritable orchard of tomato cages.

All ready to plant beefsteaks

Long pause… while everybody waited for the concrete truck to show up.

We could see concrete truck after truck going by on the highway. Several strategies for diverting concrete trucks on to our building site were discussed, debated and discarded. Calls were made. Rumors flew. Eventually, we learned that all the concrete trucks were headed to a chicken house in Hindsville, so everyone continued to mill about smartly until….

Thompson Redi-Mix rolled in, at last, and Doc’s guys filled the final hole.

Lee, Leroy & Doc performing the ritual of the Last Pier

Drill piers complete, Doc announced, “That’s the end of a stage. It’s time for a stage party!”

(Like Anyfocker needs an excuse?)

We busted out the Budweiser, Crown Royal and Shiraz but, this time, we didn’t have to huddle up in a single patch of shade because the Morrells had been thoughtful enough to build us a store addition/Shack v2.2/party pavilion.

Doc

Lee & Jac

Leroy

The text messages started flying at 7 a.m. this morning. “The drillers are coming! The drillers are coming!”

Which, if you’re one of the three Big Fockers, is an announcement that’s even more exciting than a visit from Santa. It means the beginning of Serious Work on the warehouse foundation.

The guys from Skyline Drilling arrived with an Armageddon drill bit in tow.

Harry Stamper: I will make 800 feet. I swear to God I will. Colonel William Sharp: Then let's turn this bomb off.

The Focker Chess stakes were raised considerably today. How many gigantic pieces of machinery can you get on a postage-stamp sized scrap of dirt with cliffs on three sides? Let’s see!

First, Skyline Drilling… drills.

Shannon Morrell strikes a saucy pose as Skyline prepares to bore the first hole

Next, Donny the Don (not to be confused with Don the Don but… right. We know. You’ve got the, er, drill) hops on the backhoe to push the dirt over the south cliff.

Into the breach, dear friends

Then Donny scrambles off’n the backhoe and onto the track hoe to place the tomato cage.

Doc and Leroy supervise the planting

Finally, two or more gigantic Tonka toys move out of the way to make room for the Thompson Redi-Mix truck and the concrete is poured.

Leroy,? and Doc fillin' the hole

Here’s Jan’s action video, as seen from the inner sanctum of Shack v 2.2:

Sadly, we missed the photo op of Doc holding a clipboard and orchestrating this very impressive game of Focker Chess. Sadly, Doc didn’t have a clipboard. Maybe we’ll get him one and take a photo tomorrow.

Meanwhile…

The Fast Boys of Morrell Construction finished up the siding on Shack v 2.2.

Sean, Shannon & Michael whip it into shape

By the end of the day, we had a little Hardiboard Shack in the Ozarks, surrounded by a forest of tomato cages.

Eat your heart out, Laura Ingalls Wilder.

A lot of things happened while the Big Fockers were unloading trucks, picking up truckloads of housewares and electronics, taking our regularly scheduled days off and enjoying our regularly scheduled Friday afternoon partnership meeting at Henri’s.

The wind was blowing hard on Thursday, April 29th–40 mph. (“Forty miles an hour? Bah!” said Kendra. “You Arkies are such wimps! In Kansas, 40mph is just a breeze!”)

The Fast Boys from Morrell Construction had originally planned to put the metal on the roof of Shack v2.2 but, despite our generous offer to pick them up 30 miles away in Green Forest–just in case they went all Mary Poppins off the roof–the Morrells wisely decided to wait to fool around with large, sharp objects until the weather got less… uh… breezy. So they hung the door instead.

Meanwhile, Judy’s Insulation installed the soffit in the generator shack/future employee break room (the plugs for the fan, blender & bug zapper go right under the second “G” from right):

Judy's Insulation Guy Fluffs Up the Employee Break Room

Meanwhile, The Dons tore up the lovely pad they had just built to install a 12″ drainage pipe. As Donny the Don (not to be confused with Don the Don) put it, “Some people. Give ‘em something nice. They’ll just tear it up.” And they did.

The Dons destroy the pad while Kendra, Pam & Jan wring their hands in the backround

Buy 'em books. And all they do is either eat 'em or shove 12 in. pipe into them.

Meanwhile, back in Shack v2.2′s Inner Sanctum, Stephen McGeehee The Electrician started getting us juiced up:

Sparky, Mr. May - Electrician's Monthly

Rich & John from P&P Plumbing stopped by to re-run the outdoor water line they capped twice in last winter’s two deep freezes. And we know that Dan, Dan the HVAC man was by because we see his unmistakable tracks of conduit:

Shack Inner Sanctum with unmistakable HVAC sign

By Sunday, it was like nothing had ever happened. Except that… the metal roof was on and Doc had clearly marked the next step on the warehouse foundation:

No, it's not an Ozark Horseshoe Game. That's where the drill piers go.

BOB willing and the creeks don’t rise, we’ll be drilling piers for the overpass/warehouse foundation tomorrow (Monday.)

This post will be just as quick as Morrell Construction works.

The construction of Shack v2.2 started yesterday. The roof trusses arrived late this morning and the Fast Boys of Morrell Construction got to work.

Moving so fast you can barely see them

By three in the afternoon, Shack v2.2 was ready for plumbing, electric and a roof.

Zzzzzzzzzzzoom

Bada bing, bada boom.

Our daily routine at Focker’s involves playing a game we like to call “Focker Chess,” which is a matter of moving product around and around the building, in and out of trucks and back and forth across town between the store and the warehouse. Before the addition of Kitty the Pink Focklift, a game of Focker Chess used to include calling Randy’s Towing to haul Clark the Focklift behind the truck so that Clark would be available to pick something up in one place and put it down somewhere else.

Focker Chess is a game that can only be played with lots of stuff that’s always in the way of other stuff and it’s absolutely necessary to play Focker Chess in an area that is too small for half the stuff you have stuffed into it.

The game of Focker Chess oozed out of the building and expanded onto the construction site today.

Move One: The guys from Morrell Construction showed up early to seize the Shack v2.2 side of the building site.

Morrell starts framin' it up

Move Two: Everybody pitched in to unload Jan’s electronics and housewares truck into the back door of Focker Labs so that we could, as Doc put it, “get that truck the hell out of the way.”

Move Three: Doc and Donny busied themselves with moving the rod buster’s art project (which Jan correctly pointed out, “Hey! They look like tomato cages,”) out of the way of the warehouse foundation.

Tomato cages on a track hoe

Looks like we won’t be loading anything through the back door of Focker Labs for a while. It’s a jungle gym now.

Doc & Donny, as seen from the door of Focker Labs

Focker Chess will continue to spread into the parking lot for the rest of this week, as Doc’s next delivery of steel fights for territory with the Focker trucks, Clark the Focklift and Morrell’s 30 yard construction dumpster.

Several well-wishers stopped by to peek at the goings on and all asked us, “Are you glad to finally get this project going?”

In a word: YES!

Rush hour on the construction site

By the end of the day, Morrell Construction had Shack v2.2 framed up and were starting to hang some million dollar OSB. Doc and crew had the foundation site cleared up and marked off for tomorrow’s next step, which is called, “Donny finds the power line with a line locator before somebody has the unpleasant surprise of finding it with a backhoe.”

Progress

We weren’t sure if we were ever going to meet the mysterious individual Doc calls his “Rod Buster Buddy.” It’s monsoon season in the Ozarks so it’s been pouring rain for days.

But we came to work this Sunday morning and there they were… not just a single rod buster; a set of three.

Will & David Busting Rods

If you’re thinking you can’t figure out what they’re doing because the photo is blurry, well…. as usual, there are some weird goings on at Focker’s. This isn’t your usual footer ‘n slab foundation.

As residents of and visitors to Eureka Springs well know, the town is built on a site that is really only suitable for mountain goats. Directions here are never “left” or “right.” They are only “up” and “down.” So, if you see what looks like flatland, you know that it can only be fill… feet and feet of fill. Which is the case with the Fockerfoundation.

We did do a soil test to make sure it wasn’t fill over traditional materials like rusty bedrsprings and abandoned ’42 Packards. But Kendra and Bill the structural engineer agreed that it would be tragic if Kendra, Kitty the Pink Focklift, and a triple-stacked pallet of Gatorade went sailing over the brink to where the actual ground is–20 feet below.

So we have to build a foundation that might as well be an overpass. Or, as Doc puts it, “You could land the space shuttle on this sucker!”

Here’s Connor doing rod-busting prep with the alien rod objects that David and Will are busting (in the foreground.)

Connor and... WTF?

They go in the ground. Vertically. Then they get filled with concrete. Imagine every chase scene you’ve ever seen in every action movie where The Bad Guy is chasing The Good Guy in a parking structure and The Good Guy dodges bullets by hiding behind concrete pillars. That’s what the foundation will look like, pretty much. An underground parking structure.

Tomorrow, all Hell breaks loose. Morrell Construction begins the re-construction of Shack v2.2. More rods will be busted. Jan’s truckload of electronics and housewares will be unloaded.

Let it roll….

It’s not that nothing has been going on at the building site. It’s just that the paparazzi have been distracted.

While the three Big Fockers, Jan, Kendra & Kim, headed to Missouri to pack up the remains of a convenience/fishing/gardening store, several important steps happened.

Shea, Penny & Katie from Shewmaker painting took a bit of time out of their busy day to power wash the building that will become the back wall of Shack v2.2. Stephen the Electrician stopped by to remove the weird contraption/conduit art project that would have been in the way of Shewmaker Painting’s…painting. Until Stephen the Electrician removed it.

Doc, Stephen and Shannon from Morrell Construction have conducted several important summits involving much kicking of dirt, pointing to invisible structures, scheming and plotting.

Tomorrow, the Next Big Thing happens: First delivery of steel for the really big, egregiously engineered warehouse foundation.

It’s an overpass. Or as Doc says, “You’ll be able to land the Space Shuttle on it.” (Which we’d love to try. If only somebody would give us the top secret Space Shuttle booking number we’d be happy to call for a reservation.)

The only bad news is that, during the torturous 6-month crawl to the building permit, plywood prices nearly tripled. Supply and demand. It happens. Dammit.

Now we’re wondering if there’s a dark alley black market for plywood. If there is we’ll go there immediately.

Tripling prices just… kinda…make you want to rat up your hair, redden your eyes, pull up to the dark alley in a ’62 Fairlane with lots of Bondo on the fenders… get a desperate expression on your face, whack the big veins at the bend of your elbow and whisper, hoarsely, “Hey, buddy. I just need a taste. Can you hook me up with some OSB? C’mon, man! I need it. Have some pity.”

Kendra has been shopping on line so, when I came in this morning, I had a little present on my desk.

“Every general contractor needs a hat,” said Kendra. And here it is, thoughtfully decorated with the official Wyoming buckin’ bronc:

All hat. No cattle. Got horse.

Matters of sartorial splendor dispatched, Slump Day proceeded as scheduled. Here’s Doc, Leroy and Lee working their magic:

Doc, Leroy & Lee

Lee and Leroy spent all day smoothing and fiddling. By the time the sun went down over Focker’s the foundation for Shack v2.2 was a thing of beauty:

Our new roller rink

Doc keeps talking about a mysterious individual that he calls his, “rod buster buddy.”

As Kendra’s youngest son Grant likes to say, “We don’t know what that means but you’d better take it back.”

But we think, maybe, “rod busting” has something to do with rebar. And, if that’s the case, how you say? Rod was busted today for the foundation under Shack v2.2.

Doc, Leroy & Chris... busted

It’s not quite a full-time job to keep up with the jargon. But it’s definitely a hobby.

We say “rebar.” Doc say “rod-bustin’.”

We say “big rocks.” Doc say “riprap.”

We say “big whirly-giggy-truck thing full of concrete.” Thompson Redi Mix calls it a “slump.”

Shack v2.2 foundation ready for the slump

Today we “bust.” Tomorrow, evidently, we “slump.”