Had two weeks off from work, so we decided to get rid of this shoddy old hut that the previous owners built as a place to store all the crap they were collecting (or well the crap that he was collecting). This hut was basically a car port with some panels attached to the side. The floor was a whole variety of different pavement stones - leftovers - with gravel and sand underneath. Now, our plan was to remove the hut and have some bushes and stuff planted there, but for our two week vacation, we mostly just wanted the hut gone. This is what the ensemble looked before we started:


You can tell from the picture that even in the small bit of pavement you can see, there's at least three different types of stones used. There's another set of stones under the hut itself.
The roofing of the hut was especially wonderful: when a hailstorm destroyed the original roof, they replaced it with polycarbonate. Now polycarbonate, when it's been exposed to the sun for a while, is a material far worse than styrofoam: if you so much as look at it, it breaks. And it splinters into a thousand pieces. Never use polycarbonate.

Before, I had already removed the poison ivy you can see in the background. That was a pretty nasty experience since that poison ivy had been allowed to fester for about 20 years. It had destroyed much of the wall on the backside of the hut with its sucktion cups already and, I don't know if you know this, if you cut down a lot of poison ivy, it's all poison dust trying to choke you for your trouble.

I also previously removed most of the pavement stones and stacked them up on the other side of our property for later reuse. There was just a small strip left.

When tearing down the hut, I started by removing the wooden panels at the side which I thought were just normal boards but which actually were connected to each others with tongue and groove. Since the boards are all interlocked and since most of the screws used to fasten the boards were already pretty scruffy, I just used a hammer to get most of them off.

I then pondered how to get the roof off. I didn't feel like getting a ladder so I tried hammering at the polycarbonate from below. That worked: the stuff cracked and there were splinters all around. So I stopped and took a break to think on this further. In the mean time, the wind picked up and was starting to solve the problem for me: it got under the now exposed roofing and tore off some of the polycarbonate and threw it on the neighbour's property. This was not appreciated by the neighbours a lot who panicked and nearly stampeded. I surrendered, got a ladder and started to unscrew the plates while holding on to them with all I had. In the process of getting it all off, another polycarbonate plate flew over the fence, but by then, the neighbours had been evacuated so no harm done.

The next day, it was time to dig out the concrete foundations. Now, the previous owners were pretty stingy, so it came as a surprise that they weren't stingy with the concrete. This is what I had to dig out:

I'm not sure it shows from the picture, but those things were pretty damn huge and heavy. Now I can lift a lot of weight, but I couldn't even lift the lightest of these. Maybe it was because they're difficult to grab, but I'm guessing they were just way too heavy, especially the third from the left, the big wobbly one. I ended up using the support beams of the hut to lever these out. I got them all out in a single day, which made me kind of proud. However, it also gave me pause: I had previously thought I could just throw them in the car and drive them to the disposal site. But, knowing I couldn't even get them off the ground and also only having a "normal" car and not a dump truck or something, this I could rule out. So we had to order a rubble container and while we were at it a wood container as well to get rid of all that.

Of course I had also been so naive to think I could just put the gravel into bags and reuse it for another project. I had no conception of just how much there was.

So the containers were an especially good idea. Especially because this happened: we went to our favorite nursery to look at and order some bushes for later delivery, and we had this really nice selection all setup on their yard and then the boss comes over and says "well, we'd have to deliver that pretty soon though, it's high season and we can't store these for your for very long" and then they asked if they should deliver the same week or the next week and I was all like

So yeah, that meant that I didn't just had to remove what was left of the hut, but also prepare the whole ground for new plants. Since the ground had been extremely compressed and there was only gravel and sand on it, that meant the sand and gravel had to go and fresh soil had to be thrown on top. That was thursday.

Friday evening, we did some calculating and realized we needed four cubic meters of soil. In freedom units, that's over 141 cubic feet. That is also roughly 6.5 METRIC TONS.



^- Our nosy neighbours kept watching me work all the time!

Spent the entire friday weekend removing the gravel and sand mix and throwing it into the container, and on sunday I dug out huge poison ivy roots in the vain hope that it wouldn't return anytime soon. Of course it will, because that is what this hellspawn of a plant will do, but...

Monday morning, my gf started to phone around and luckily, one supplier actually dumped those 6.5 metric tons of soil on our property the same afternoon. So all of thursday, I was busy wheelbarrowing and shoveling those 6.5 metric tons. Wednesday was a public holiday and on thursday, the nursery guys came over and planted what we had selected. They actually complimented me on the prep work for the patch. That felt really good.

This is what it looked like when I was done with it:

So as you can see I cut out a quarter circle from the lawn as well, so that was more stuff to be thrown into a container because of stupid laws.

When I was done, the first two containers looked like this:

Sorry for the potato quality picture, but you can tell just how much rubble that is.

I'll do you one better and put it in numbers though.

That's around 750 kilos of wood (or ~1650 lbs)
That's also 5670 kilos of rubble (or ~12500 lbs)

I know, because we got the bill today and that stuff is billed by weight.

I'll get a picture with the plants in later, but ... yeah that was our vacation project.


Did I mention I only had a shovel and a wheelbarrow, not an excavator?

That's what it looks like now:

Still some work left to do: the empty area in the front will be filled with lawn, and there will be a stone border separating the lawn from the bushes.

This afternoon I at long last mowed the lawn! Most of it.

I desperately wanted and needed to mow around a week ago, during our last day of dry weather prior to days of potential heavy rains and/or storms. But... I wasn't far enough along recovering from my back having gone out on me some days prior. I felt a bit better by then, but didn't dare risk relapse.

Today is the first day since then I deemed it anywhere near dry enough to attempt a mow. Even that was stretching things. The ground is still thoroughly soaked, grass/weed bottoms damp. Parts of back yard, abutting the rear fence, remain under water.

Be that as it may, several hours of potential rains/storms are predicted for tomorrow morning. It was now or never, with grass already uncomfortably tall.

Went out this afternoon under cloudy skies. Pulled the mower from my (covered) front porch to the front walkway. Checked gas...A-OK. Got ready to pull the start string. Plop...plop...plop...a light drizzle set in. Pushed the mower back onto the porch. Stood under the porch overhang a few minutes. Light drizzled became an occasional spit. Pulled mower onto the front walkway. Fired it up. Off I went.

Much to my surprise, I was able to mow all I hoped to, front yard, sides, and all the back except roughly a sixth near the rear fence. The mower conked cut three times, clogged by wads of damp clover. Truth to tell, I fully expected to not be able to mow that large section of back yard at all. All in all it came off surprisingly well.

Tuesday Morning Addendum:
Rain/Storm predictions are now removed from today's forecast. Had I known this yesterday I might have waited until today to mow, in theoretically drier conditions. That said, I'm glad to have gotten it out of the way, dampness or no dampness.

Mowed the lawn after lunch. Could have waited a few more days...if storms weren't predicted for tomorrow.

Need to remember to buy a new air filter for the mower. Been trying to remember that (when it counts) for over a year now.

I need to get new eyeglasses. :/

Reaper, very pretty and nice choice for music.

Project: Exercise Walks
Status: Ongoing
After a several month hiatus since my first, disastrous, walking attempt this year, terminated after only one walk, I resumed walking either this past Saturday or Sunday. Walked every day except yesterday (rare scheduling conflict). Leave the house circa 0545-0600. Follow my long-established 25-30minute route. Only day-one did I go out later. Gotta say the earlier walk time suits me far be, but then I've long been a morning person. Carried an umbrella one walk due to predicted rain/storms, but nothing came of it.

Project: Routine Dental Exam
Status: Complete
I need a crown. Bloody 'ell.

Project: Crown
Status: Scheduled
I go in 24 Jun. My copay is $540.10US, start to finish. Or so I'm told.

Project: Cardio Appointment
Status: Upcoming
A long-scheduled routine maintenance visit, 18 Jun. Or so I hope.