We got the footers poured today, all 8 of them.  I am so glad I decided to rent the cement mixer as we were able to mix 6 bags of concrete at once.  I would still be out there mixing concrete if we didn't have the mixer.

We used 42 bags of concrete.  At 60 lbs. per bag, that's 2520 lbs.!!! I figured that I moved each bag 4 times.

1. At the store, from the ground to the van.
2. At home, from the van to garage (didn't want to run the risk of it getting wet!)
3. From the garage to the backyard.
4. From the ground up into the cement mixer.

That means I moved over 5 tons of concrete...all by myself.  OK...that's 60 lbs. at a time, and over several days, but still, I moved over 5 tons of concrete all by myself!!  And since my wife was the one who shoveled the concrete into the holes, she moved over a ton of concete by herself. So, combined, my wife and I moved over 6 tons of concrete in 2 days, using nothing but our hands.

The next scheduled day of construction is this Friday, when my father, uncle and father in-law will start framing the deck.