{"id":540,"date":"2017-11-02T00:08:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T07:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/?p=540"},"modified":"2017-11-03T09:37:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T16:37:55","slug":"cleaning-up-house-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/2017\/11\/02\/cleaning-up-house-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning (up) House – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
Breaking Up is Hard to Do<\/h6>\n

I was next able to visit the property in late October.\u00a0 The optimism we enjoyed from seeing the start of cleanup had been tempered a bit by the fact that we had no visual progress updates since the last visit.\u00a0 So I found myself anticipating this visit in part just to be able to get another dopamine boost.<\/p>\n

About a third of an inch of rain had fallen at the end of the previous week. It was obviously welcome relief to the parched landscape, but had interrupted DKI’s schedule. They did not work on site that Friday as they were worried about the possibility of snow on the steep driveway.\u00a0 They seemed to be taking longer than planned and this had only delayed them further.<\/p>\n

\"Image
This is what the driveway now looks like from the top of the steepest section<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still, by the time I arrived they had finished removing most of the debris. They were now focused on removing the concrete foundations and dead trees surrounding the house and garage.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The pump house and water tank slab are now cleared of all debris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though they were technically a bit behind schedule, their efforts were notable both for the good progress they had made, and for how they made difficult work look pretty easy.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The foundation wall is now all that is left of the house itself. The former entrance to the house is at top left, and the oak tree on the right is the one that was right next to the lower deck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For instance, to clear the area below the foundation wall (where the house itself once stood) required two excavators; one below the wall to remove material, and another above, on the driveway itself, to dispose of it.\u00a0 Getting that lower excavator into position required navigating some pretty steep terrain.<\/p>\n

\"Image
This steep slope is the “road” the excavator had to navigate (in reverse) in order to go from the work site back onto the driveway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shortly after I arrived they were done using the lower excavator, so they needed to get it back up onto the driveway.\u00a0 The terrain is too steep to drive up normally, as you might with a car for example.<\/p>\n

\"Image
If you’ve ever worked with equipment like this you know how tricky this maneuver is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Instead you have to approach the slope backwards<\/strong>, and simultaneously use the shovel as both a crutch (for stability) and as a foot (to push the excavator up slope).\u00a0 Without that extra push the excavator’s tracks just grind their way into the dirt and you go nowhere.\u00a0 Lose the extra stability provided by the crutch and you risk rolling the (several ton) excavator over, on a steep hillside no less.\u00a0 This is not a job for the feint of heart!<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the driveway itself, DKI used the heavy equipment to collect and then dispose of the foundation rubble.\u00a0 As I know from my experience with the Bobcat skidsteer, it is easy to take for granted the power available in those hydraulic cylinders.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Some of the rocks and broken concrete DKI collected to haul away<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imagine trying to move even one of those boulders by hand.\u00a0 Or the tree trunks below.\u00a0 With only manual labor it would have taken many hands, and many weeks.<\/p>\n

\"Image
They collected tree trunks and “slash” in another pile nearby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s another example of the power behind those hydraulics.\u00a0 That crumpled piece of metal below is actually the quarter-inch-thick steel door of the old Bobcat’s engine compartment.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The heavy steel rear door of the Bobcat, crumpled almost as if made of aluminum foil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the power in these mechanical beasts of burden, they do still have their limits.\u00a0 DKI’s foreman told me that he had to dismantle the burned-out hulk of our old Bobcat because it was just too heavy to lift in one piece.\u00a0 That is why he had removed the steel door.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The Bobcat’s diesel engine lies alone on the ground, bent and partially dismantled<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the same reason I found the Bobcat’s diesel engine lying on the pavement, all alone and partially dismantled.<\/p>\n

\"Closeup
A closeup of the underside of the Bobcat engine, showing the exposed crankshaft and piston rods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the engineer in me found the exposed innards very interesting, it was also a bit sad to see the engine like this.\u00a0 Prior to the fire it had been fully functional and running strong, providing the very same kind of power that DKI was now using to dispose of it.<\/p>\n

Goodbyes Are Hard Too<\/h6>\n

Despite the welcome morale boost each step in the cleanup has given us, there is (for me at least) still a quiet but persistent sadness present whenever I visit.\u00a0 I feel a nagging sense of loss here; the loss of something that can never be replaced, never undone.<\/p>\n

I feel it acutely every time I see a new tree stump appear where a familiar tree once stood.\u00a0 On a practical level I know the trees have to come down. They are dead (or nearly so). They can never again be the healthy green towers of shade that they once were. It was only a short few months ago that the landscape was crowded with them.\u00a0 Now the few that remain standing are coming down too.<\/p>\n

\"Image
A late afternoon overview of the driveway from above, with the oak tree still standing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though I know it cannot be so, a big part of me still wants to believe that if only I let them remain standing they would bud again next Spring.\u00a0 It hurts to see each one of these old friends come down.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Another overview of the driveway on the following day, with the big oak tree now lying on the pavement below<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
Nearly all of the trees that were above the path to the picnic area are now lying across it, or gone altogether<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
That oak tree that was next to the lower deck is now down too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The feeling of loss is not confined to those majestic old trees either.\u00a0 Familiar aspects of the house and property are now also gone forever, or disappearing with each day of the demolition.<\/p>\n

\"Image
On the day I arrived, the shop wall where the wood stove once stood was nearly all that was left of the garage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
And by the end of the following day the wall itself was down; the big oak tree above it reduced to a stump. Its branches are visible in the foreground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image
The garage and shop support posts which survived the fire have now joined the pile of concrete and boulders, awaiting their trip to the landfill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One final task during my visit was to empty the 20 foot storage container behind the house.\u00a0 Although it survived the fire, thick smoke found its way into the interior, covering everything inside with a heavy layer of jet-black soot.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The blackened storage container is surrounded by dead trees, including a massive, broken old oak tree directly behind it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It had been mostly empty already except for some sturdy metal shelves, extra skid-steer tire chains and a few other parts for the old Bobcat.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The inside of the container was not damaged by heat, but completely covered with soot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I pulled those things out of the container and stacked them beside the few items we’d salvaged from the garage’s shop area.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The salvaged wood stove and shop workbench now stand in front of the storage container, along with some of the container’s metal shelving<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the container was empty I secured a plastic tarp over the items outside, in a feeble attempt to protect them from the long winter ahead.<\/p>\n

The container itself will probably be one of the last things that DKI removes from the property.\u00a0 Even though we really didn’t use it for the last 10 years, it will still make me sad to see it go. Kinda like the trees I guess.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, we didn’t really “use” most of those trees on the property either.\u00a0 Yet like good friends they were always there for us.<\/p>\n

That Reminds Me<\/h6>\n

As I started down the driveway on my way back home, this colorful Dogwood reminded me that Winter is just around the corner.<\/p>\n

\"Image
A young Dogwood in front of the Trestlewood Chalet is putting on a Fall show<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And sure enough, I see that there is more rain and possibly even snow in the forecast for this weekend, the first weekend of November.<\/p>\n

That forecast has me worrying about the driveway again.\u00a0 I sure hope DKI is finished by Friday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breaking Up is Hard to Do I was next able to visit the property in late October.\u00a0 The optimism we enjoyed from seeing the start of cleanup had been tempered a bit by the fact that we had no visual progress updates since the last visit.\u00a0 So I found myself anticipating this visit in part … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cleaning (up) House – Part 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"Some of the tools that DKI used to tackle the mess that was the Logger's Retreat","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DKIEquipmentOnSite.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9iwY6-8I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loggersretreat.com\/rebuild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}