Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - Hammer Time

The dogs don’t like it when I lock them inside and they can’t see what I am doing in the backyard. But when I have all the gates open, well then they get locked inside. I decided it was time to get one of those pesky things off of my list. Mostly because I wanted the hammock back up under the Magnolia Tulip tree and that meant it was time to move the concrete rubble.

We had a pond. It was here when we bought the house four years ago and not very well installed. It was a ten feet wide, shallow, concrete bowl and it leaked. It wasn’t deep enough for a decent pump and I fought algae, pesky mosquitoes and decomposing leaves.  So I convinced Lissa it was time to ixnay the ponday. 

She still works and loves her job, but feels guilty sometimes about some of the projects I take on and the demo of our concrete pond was pushing her guilt buttons.  So we decided Saturday was a good day and we would both be available to beat that sucker apart.

 I rented a 65 pound electric Hilti Demo hammer from Home Depot. You know it is going to be a bit of a struggle when a tool comes with its own dolly. I have handled a lot of power tools over the years in the fire department and was looking forward to another adventure.  Lissa got a friend from work to come help. Kathy must have been bored that Saturday to volunteer for this duty.  So we all teamed up and got the beast out of my truck and wheeled it back to the pond. The dogs watched as we passed by the back door, their noses pressed up to the glass door. No Lab Tilt this time, they didn’t want anything to do with this project.

I dragged the hammock stand from underneath the Magnolia Tuulip tree since that would become the staging area for the pond rubble.  Then we moved some short fencing that had surrounded the pond to keep the dogs from charging through mosquito infested, smelly pond water and rolled the dolly down into the dried up pond.  We rotated the retaining collar off the neck of the hammer and lifted the beast off the holding peg. Damn, it was a bit unwieldy and it wasn’t even plugged and doing the jack hammer dance yet.  I squatted down a bit and pivoted the beast onto my bent knees so Kathy could insert a chisel bit in to the collar.  Lissa plugged in the extension cord and Kathy and I looked at each other and grinned. We pulled down our ear muffs and pushed up our safety glasses. I slowly squeezed the handle and the beast started slowly dancing up and down. I stopped and looked at Kathy, “you ready?” she nodded yes and off we went. We started on the bottom and then started to work our way up the shallow sides. As we moved up the sides we had to adjust the strike angle of the chisel into more perpendicular aspect against the concrete or it would skid across the surface.  Several times the chisel would bang down through the concrete and get jammed up and I couldn’t pull the beast back up. So Kathy would grab one handle and I would grab the other handle and we would pull. “One-two-three” and tug upward. We jiggled back and forth and finally got it clear of the concrete. As we made our way around the pond and broke the concrete down into pieces we discovered that they had set down heavy duty wire in a rectangle form fashion to help hold the concrete as it set. So the shoulder of the chisel would jamb under one of the wires and we would get stuck.  At least it wasn’t rebar and we could work our way around it. As we broke away sections, Lissa would come over with bolt cutters and cut through the metal wire to try and untangle the wire fortress. 

We worked for about two hours and our sad, shallow pond morphed into a bowl of rubble. Lissa pitched rubble pieces onto the ground vacated by my hammock as Kathy and I worked our way around the pond. Finally we were done and got the beast back up to the level ground and back onto its dolly. We gulped down limeaide and caught our breath. I had only rented the beast for four hours so I need to wipe it down and get it back to Home Depot.  After a breather, Kathy was ready to haul the rubble to the truck.  It’s nice to have younger friends around with all this youthful energy, but I had to get to the depot and then I needed the truck for another project. “Don’t worry”, I said, “we’ll work on it tomorrow”. So she headed home on her bicycle and I headed to the depot. 

Since we had moved the fence the dogs had gingerly walked across the rubble to explore some ferns and a Japanese maple that had overlooked our pond.  Sunday afternoon Lissa and I had about an hour to schlep rubble to the truck, but did not have time to finish. The wheelbarrow would not work very well because I could not wheel it up into the truck.  That would mean I would have to move it twice and I hate that. So I built a box to sit on top of our dolly to hold two 5 gallon buckets. We dropped big pieces of rubble into the buckets then wheeled them off  to the truck, lift a bucket and dump it in the bed put it back in the box and lift the other bucket and dump it and wheel the dolly back to the rubble pile for two more buckets. Slow and steady.  At least it wasn’t the Shawshank Redemption method where you dig out with a small hobby rock hammer, stow handfuls of crushed rock into your pockets and them shake them loose while doing laps around the prison yard. Oh and that took decades. So not that bad. 

By Monday I was eager to get back into my hammock and peer up through a canopy of warm green leaves into dashes of blue sky.  I worked for a few hours with my buckets and dolly. Sweat dripped off my nose and into my eyes. I thought I better check with the recycle yard that was going to accept the concrete to make sure they could take the embedded wire zinging out in all directions like a bad hair day.  Thy were happy to take concrete with rebar, but the smaller wire would jam up their crusher so I would have to remove all extra wire jutting form the rubble. Crap. So I sat on the rail of my truck and spent about an hour pulling apart wire and cutting it loose with bolt cutters.  Images of me as a kid while my Mom cut bubble gum out from my hair swarmed in my mind. At least she didn’t need bolt cutters. But it was an opportunity for me to practice some sort of Zen breathing. Crap.

I finally loaded all the rubble and made it to the concrete recycle place. My truck was a little heavy on the back end and I think she was groaning like me rising up out of bed on an early, cold day. I spent about 30 minutes shoveling, hand digging and tossing pieces out. I finally got back home and yanked the hammock stand back under my tree. 

Lissa called as I was going in the house for the hammock.  “Hey, you must be exhausted” she said.

I mumbled yes as I reached for the hammock on the shelf in the sunroom.

“Did you hose out under the tree yet?  We have an infestation of aphids and they are dripping sap down on the hammock area. So you might want to spray that down before you set it back up” she continued. 

My head dropped. Crap. The dogs sat next to the door and gave me the Lab Tilt. “OK, I will add it to the list,” I said as I opened the door and they tore outside headed for the dirt bowl.