Team Work!

Last weekend, we prepared everything necessary for the arrival of our third dumpster.....And this weekend we had a great group of friends come up and help us fill it with all the amassed garbage of the last few months.

 We started the day straight away, picking up all the shingles, metal, siding, and all other garbage from around the yard.

 There was a lot of little pieces of garbage that needed to be raked up.

 Very quickly the guys pointed out that there was no way all of the garbage was gonna fit in the dumpster, so we we decided to burn all of the siding instead of putting it in the dumpster; it's an old fiber board material.

  After only one hour the dumpster was full and all the garbage was gone!  It was incredible to see how much 7 hard working people could do so quickly.

 We then split off into groups and picked jobs off a list we had made of things that needed to be done.
A couple of  us took apart the old rotten deck.

 While others went on the roof to remove the roof boards.

 The newly capped septic needed to be buried and the ground levelled off.

 We then stopped for a much needed break for lunch.

 And had a couple beers and relaxed a bit.

 The morning was not without injury, as some one fell while trying to climb into the rafters, ouch!

 We got back at it,  trying to finish the roof boards as fast as we could...

 

 ...while a dedicated few did the hard work: the de-nailing of the salvaged wood.
This by far is the most time consuming and annoying work.  We are lucky to have such friends that are willing to do it!

 Jacob and I had been on the roof almost all day and we were getting a little exhausted....

 So we left the remainder of the roof boards to be finished by who ever was comfortable to get up on the ladders.

 

 It was getting late in the afternoon, and I was thinking that everyone was pretty much done for the day, but when the guys realized we were getting close to being able to smash stuff they all got a second wind!

 "Can we just push the wall over?"

 

 I still wanted to salvage all the 2 x 6 rafters, so we did that quick and dirty.

 We passed the rafters down and Dan and Faith took them apart - once again getting stuck with the less fun job.  But equally as important.

 "Can we smash stuff with the sledgehammers now?"

 

 

 

  I can't believe that wall stayed standing.

 We smashed all the wall boards out and gathered and piled all the bits of wood to be burned for another day.

 A Very Productive Day!

Dumpster Prep

Next weekend we are getting another dumpster to clean up the lawn before winter.  

 Here is Chris deciding what needs to be done in order to prepare.

 While I wandered around taking pretty pictures.  

The sun starting to break through the clouds.

 Back on the roof, Chris attacks the antenna.

Look out below!

Hmmm, what's next?

We want to take down one more room, so Chris removed the siding and roof shingles in preparation for the dumpster.  He cut the shingles, so you can clearly see the next section to be demolished.

 ...while I kept taking pretty pictures.  :)  This really shows how open it feels with the leaves gone.

I forced Chris into the hammock for an hour.

 We went for a walk to explore the land, trying to find the property line.

 We found two survey markers which helped a lot.

 We marked where we thought the edge of our property was. 

 There are lots of little streams winding through the land.

 We returned from our hike as the sun was setting.  We love the way the trees hide the driveway, making it more secluded.

Septic Cover

We weren't here last weekend because of Thanksgiving, and many of the leaves have fallen in the past two weeks.  The neighbour tells us last weekend was the peak of the fall colours, and we missed it.  But they still look pretty on the ground!

Pretty nice colours for such a dreary day!

Emptying the last of the oil, so we can dispose of the tank next weekend.

The septic cover arrives!  

We were missing a slab, so instead of replacing that we ordered a 4'x4' piece with a hatch.  Hopefully we'll never have to uncover the whole tank again!

Chris is a pro!  Perfectly aligned, first try.  

This was so quick and easy, but it was too good to be true...

 It had been raining a lot, and the truck sank into our soggy yard.   Try as we might, we couldn't get him free.  Fifteen pieces of lumber later, and we finally gave up.

He had to call for backup.  Cement truck to the rescue!  My nephews would have loved this.

The mess left behind.  Good thing we plan to landscape in the future.