When I started into this trade I labored for a menonite masonry company..
Ive mixed plenty of mortar and concrete by hand, and then Id have to haul it up thirty feet with a rope and pulley so they could pour it down the chimney. An eight hundred pound chimney cap in less than forty minutes.. My elbows are getting old and I could be doing other things while the mixer is doing the work..
My motto is, the easy way is the only way, which is very hard to adhere to in this trade.
Eventually I will get a concrete mixer mostly because there is call for lots of concrete work around here and the only way to make concrete properly for my climate is to add air entrainment, which requires mechanical mixing.