Flagpole: the form is ready for concrete...

Flagpole: the form is ready for concrete...  And the concrete is ordered for tomorrow at noon.  My backhoe made short work of digging the big hole for the form – took me less than two hours, including finishing the details with a shovel.  Not bad for moving more than five cubic yards of heavy, wet soil!

The last step, which I finished just before dark this evening, was to position the steel sleeve in the center of the form.  You can see (in the last two photos) my system for holding it in place – using four steel wires tightened down with eye bolts to the point where they twang when plucked.  That sleeve shouldn't be moving at all when the place the concrete tomorrow.  I built a little plywood cover for the sleeve so that the concrete truck can't accidentally fill it with concrete – that would be a disaster!

Tomorrow morning I'm going to go out there and spray the inside of the form with Pam (spray canola oil) so that the concrete won't stick to the form.  I'm hopeful that I can tie ropes to the hooks on the top of the form and just yank it out with the tractor.  If that doesn't work, I'll have to tear it apart with a wrecking bar, which would be a lot more work :)