During the third week in October, I arrive and Joe and myself begin by purchasing wood materials and gathering other equipment and tools necessary for this project.

The materials include 3/4 inch plywood and two-by-fours and once we arrive at the site with the wood, Joe and I began forming the wall for the caps.

The tools included borrowing a large amount of metal foundation pins to construct the wood concrete forms, one on either side of the bridge.

We begin by building the walls and shoring them up with two by four lumber and the steel foundation pins. We use some of the rocks to help hold the plywood near the outlying ends.

While we are building the walls, we decide to build a flat slab where the water exits the culverts.

The area where the water exits need the slab to cover the plastic water conduit pipe. Joe tells me that the one inch water pipe is inside the four inch plastic pipe and if it is buried in concrete, it will be better protected.

He suggest and I agree that if we raise the exit slab up the height of a two by six board, it should allow for enough concrete above the plastic conduit.

We also decide to pour a concrete slab where the water enters the culverts so as to prevent deepening of the hole there which could undermine the culverts.

By the end of that day, we have what we think will work. I get out my camera and take a few photos of the forms.

The next morning, we both arrive at the bridge, ready to pour the concrete.

The truck arrive at about ten this morning and we start by pouring the two walls. With just Joe and myself doing the work, I do not have an opportunity to take photos of any of the work.

In fact, it is not until we have all the surfaces finished do it have time to get out the camera and take a few photos.

Then by two this afternoon, we have the concrete in the forms, compacted and the surfaces have been smoothed.

Joe walks out to the middle of the bridge and I take a photo of him.

We then clean up the tools, pack everything away and call it a day. The concrete should be dry by tomorrow afternoon and then we will pull off the forms.

After we remove the forms and stack the wood in the back of his truck, I take off for a week to do driving tour of some of the national parks in the east. When, I come back, I stop and take a photo of the now dried bridge retaining wall.

The next step is to trowel on a high strength concrete to finish the bridge wall surface. Too, the overflow channel is overgrown with weeds and needs to be reworked. Also, the rock piles on the four corners of the bridge need to be stacked in a way that the current from Lowery Creek does not keep washing them down stream.

Then, if Joe wishes for me to clean up the roadway approach entrance to the bridge, that will happen at a later time. All the these steps will take time and even more materials.

Arriving back in Tennessee the next spring, I drive to the bridge to see how it looks. I find that it did winter fairly well and the concrete has cured nicely.

The time to finish the wall surface has now arrived.

In times past, I have found that to finish a concrete surface, it is best to use a high strength concrete repair product. Concrete is usually rated by the pounds per square inch and regular concrete has 3000 to 4000 psi. High strength concrete, however, is usually 6000 psi or greater.

On this project we will use 6000 psi concrete to trowel onto the surface to fill the holes and finish the surface of the concrete wall on both sides of the bridge.

The instruction of the concrete bag specify that it can be applied from zero to four inches thick. Also, small batches are mixed because of the fast set up time.

For the best adhesion of the concrete to the bridge, I saturate the bridge surface with water before troweling on the concrete mix. I mix a batch of the concrete and trowel it on about a quarter of an inch thick.

Joe orders a truckload of gravel and has it dumped to the side of the bridge entrance. I get busy spreading it out across both sides in front of the bridge.

There is still enough gravel for me to use in some of the areas around the rock work. I move several piles of gravel across the bridge to use at the top of the rocks alongside the driveway.

Pointing to the bare spots where we still need more large rock, I suggest to Joe that we should just go down stream and retrieve all the rock that has washed there from his bridge. He gets the wheel barrel and we head downstream for the rock.

The stream bed is slate and easy to navigate with a wheel barrel. Soon we retrieve most the large rock that washed downstream during the winter high water, tossing it all upon the bank until it is covered in rock.

I think it is at this time when we are tramping through the creek picking up rock, that Joe begins to think of how to keep the rock from washing downstream again. More about that later.

This to me is the most tedious work there is, work that requires a lot of digging, moving and re-stacking the rock in it′s place. I ask Joe if he can get me some flat slate rock from the pile at the top of the hill where he has been leveling the land.

He leaves and later comes back with a truck load of large flat rock. I tell him that this flat rock will be used to line the bottom of the overflow channel. He says that he will get more if I need it. I get busy digging out the channel making the bottom wider to allow for installing the flat rock.

Also, here is where I bring the extra gravel from the driveway and spread it on the ground around at the top of the overflow channel.

Just like was done on the inlet channel on the south side, I begin by digging out all the large rock, then widen the path at the bottom, add some gravel to the bottom and then begin placing the flat rock on the bottom of this channel.

Later that day, Joe shows up with a truck load of cement mix to pour on the rock pile and after that is done, then he sprays water over the pile to cement the rocks together. He says that putting the concrete mix on all of the bank rock will prevent the rock from leaving the bridge again. I agree with that!