Big tough construction worker

Or maybe scrawny tired construction hobbyist. First I should take care to point out that I put in a ten-hour day for my employer. That leaves fourteen to do other stuff in, right? Well, I did hit a milestone of sorts in the shed construction project. Over the weekend and yesterday evening I built the form for the concrete pad the shed will go on: Rectangular, 22 by 12, made of 2×6's staked to the ground so the top edge is absolutely level. I had already dug the ground down to where it was reasonably level inside the form (that took a couple weekends and a lot of shoveling, not even counting the considerable work I did with the front end loader) , and we used Martin's professional laser level to adjust the form. Saturday he delivered a ton of gravel and I placed each piece of gravel individually where it would make the most level surface possible. Okay, I shoveled it into the area and raked it fairly smooth. Turned out I needed two tons, and Martin came through Monday. That was my Monday evening project. Then I tamped the area and it looked pretty good, ready for the mud. That came at 9 this morning, and beginning to end it took four hours. The cement company has a truck that mixes the materials on the spot, so you get (and buy) only what you need. It took about 3.75 cubic yards. We raked and shoveled the stuff around, put in wire mesh, and screeded. Screeding is drawing a sturdy board across the top to make the concrete level. That's why the top of the form has to be exact. This stuff is heavy! It was all I could do to lift a five-gallon bucket of it. After we had the form exactly full, indicated by the screeding, we ran a bull float over the surface as it began to stiffen and made it fairly smooth. Running a large trowel like a bull float pushes the gravel just below the surface so you get a nice smooth top. It takes over an hour to get hard enough to be called solid. About when it stopped being liquid, I pulled a broom over the surface to give it all an even texture. This was the best choice for the final "troweling" (called a broom finish) because I don't have the concrete finishing tools necessary to make it really smooth. But hey, I'm going to put a shed on it. It's going to be a garage floor. No problem. Total cost for all the materials and everything came to about $600. Plus what I owe Martin for his valuable guidance. The fellow who bid on putting in a gravel pad for the shed wanted $1100, and I paid about $3000 for the other professionally done concrete pad.