Originally posted on 2021-01-24
Now that we’ve torn down the first part of the house and are working on cleanup we’ve decided that we’re going to be tearing down the other part of the house a little differently.
We had thought that using the tractor to tear down the house was a really good idea and in fairness, it did bring the house down rather quickly even with the backhoe not being quite tall enough, but it left behind a mess that is taking us forever to clean. Yes, it’s taken so long because we are working, the days have been short, and often it’s been too cold to work the entire day, but it’s also taking so long because we have to sort through the mess.
We don’t want to pay to throw out dirt and rock and we have the incinerator for the wood so most of the time we’ve been cleaning up the debris has been spent sorting out the dirt, rock, and wood from the items that need to go into the bin. It’s been very slow going to do all that sorting and sometimes we still need to break it further apart with a crowbar or a hammer.
This can be very cold on our hands, even with wearing gloves, since right now it’s all covered in snow and we also don’t want to pay to throw out snow. The incinerator helps with this, but there is only so long one can stand by a fire and try to dry their gloves. So, if tearing down the house with the tractor then sorting the debris isn’t working for us what are we going to do when we tear down the rest of the house?
The eastern room was only partly torn apart by the tractor, leaving a few walls and the floor that we had to tear apart by hand. It is slower to get the house down than it is with the tractor, but we can sort the debris as we go and the clean-up is much faster and on a whole, we’ve found it easier. We plan to pull down the other half of the house this way when the time comes.
We did make some good progress this week though, and we will be calling them to come pick up the bin in the next couple of days. We closed the door shortly after this picture was taken and we will be filling up the remaining space by using the scaffolding to allow us to throw items over the side. Building of the new house will begin in the spring once the ground is thawed enough to dig.
In other news, some of our neighbors built an ice rink near our house for people to skate on. Eventually, we’ll get some skates that fit for the little one, but in the meantime, she has fun playing on it with the dog (when no one else is using it of course) and it’s another option for something to do so we don’t always have to hike on the private trails in our neighborhood. Even with Covid, there is a fair amount we can do, but the whole family is missing calling up friends and doing things with people.
That is all for now. You can now leave comments and we encourage you to do so. You can also sign-up for a mailing list so you never miss a new post. Please also follow us on Facebook for additional photos of the work being done. Thank you for following us on our journey and I look forward to seeing you next week.
Huron The Lake 