Toby Rheaume stopped by just before first thing in the morning to give me his expertise about getting down the large hemlock that has died right next to the Taj Mahal. He is lending me his snatch block and spare steel cable so that I can safely pull it down with the Kubota in a direction that it wouldn’t want to go given its natural inclination (that’s logger-speak for “the tree is leaning the wrong way”). The old dock shack is no more. Chree and I took apart the framing, one wall at a time, and had all the pieces in the Ranger by 3 o’clock. (Just to assuage the concerns of you environmentalists out there: the materials that once constituted the old dock shack will be reincarnated next summer as a waterfront woodshed.) A three-foot long garter snake kept us company for most of the day. Sure hope he or she likes ants and ant eggs, ‘cause we sure found zillions of them as the dock shack came apart. Then, having a couple of work hours left ‘till swim time, we proceeded with removing the last remnant of the stairs that once came down to the waterfront from the Glassner’s (now Kate’s) house. Chree suggested that, instead of taking them apart one board at a time like I’d spent days doing with the rest of the stairs, we cut them apart into sections with the Sawzall. BRILLIANT!!!! Got ¾ of that project done before it was time open the Merlot and sear some cow over the cook fire.
