The Big Move - Part 1

Monday was another productive day. I spend some time moving salvaged plants I have in pots away from the tree fencing in the back yard to make room for the air spading tomorrow. Gail then helped me move all of the accessible landscape brick from the front yard and stack it beside the back shed.

I then set to work salvaging a rhodo, 6 large roses, an 7ft lilac, an azalea, and misc other plants. Most of the roses went to my neighbour to bring a touch of colour to their side yard and keep back encroaching blackberries from a lane allowance. The lilac was planted on my border to the house to the south to try and make up for the fact that I had to take down a vine maple in this area to make room for the storage container.

Much of the early evening was spent prepping the pad that this container will eventually stay during construction.

Today was less productive but not for a lack of trying. Gail was there first thing this morning to help cut up and load all of the cut down vine maple onto the trailer in prep for another green waste run. Eric was also on hand and again chewed through a big pile of lumber and de-nailed it for me. I finished clearing up in the front yard after yesterdays big plant salvage and then started prepping for the container move including removing the last wall that was in the way.

This was all done by lunch. I then spent the next 2.5 hours moving the container a measly 10ft. At first it did not look like it was going to budge at all. It took probably 30 minutes just to get one end a few inches of the ground. But then I was able to figure out a specific movement with the tractors bucket curling down into the ground that seemed to have the greatest force behind it. The container is 5200 Lbs empty, and I probably already have 1000 lbs of stuff inside.

Once I was able to get the end about 8″ off the ground I was able to block it and then stuff a long rail road tie I had in the back yard so that it was perpendicular and underneath the end of the container (So I could pivot one end sideways). Once lowered down onto the tie, the container was easily pulled sideways along the greasy tie until of course I ran up against the houses floor slab edge (foundation).  It then took an hour to jack it up and finally wrangle it up onto the floor slab. This is as far as I got for the day as I had to leave for a massage appointment with my lovely Karen at Bloom, who every week or two, puts me back together and helps prevent injuries.

Tomorrow morning the air spade crew comes and I will see if we are able to save the large cedar at the NW corner of the house.  I will then try to finish moving the container to the front yard.  I am thinking I will only get it to the front of the house and not be able to move it to its final resting place because of the soft soil there.  If this is the case, I will call the company who delivered it and have them send a track with the right crane that can lock onto the container and just lift and rotate it into place.

Lets see how it goes.  I would like this done so that I can finish taking down the house and get this demolition behind me!

Thanks for visiting.