After wacken down our two
big trees ( another project still in progress ) we needed some shade in
the back yard so we got a gazebo. Nutten to it except we had to run
all over town to find the one we wanted, getting it loaded in the car,
unloaded from the car and I thought setting it up would be a day maybe
two being I don't work as long or hard as I use to.
But you know I can't do it
the easy way like just put it together and sit under it sippen my ice tea
and being proud of a job well done. AND ALL of my projects make projects
of their own and this was not an exception to the rule. We had two
locations in mind for this critter and the first being where the pool use
to be, yes another project and another story. The 2nd location was
where our sitting area use to be when we had shade from the trees.
Good location being it was by the fish pond and you can always hear the
running water.
So we buys the thing and drags
it home ~

| Instructions ?
who reads instructions ? And just look at this pile of scrap paper,
all that to put this critter together and that will be the easy part.
Yep decided to put it by the pond and also decided the small 'mini mountain'
had to go. It would just take up to much room under the gazebo and
even tho we liked it when we put it up 20 or so years ago the bigger mini
mountain is more then enough.
And I couldn't load as many
as I wanted at one time being my 'dump truck' done' dump like it use to
.
Then all almost went well,
seems the mower deck scraped on the top of the ramp so I took it off. More
better.
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For sure this is going to be
a pain in the everything. Not that I over built this thing cuz for
once I didn't, but the rocks are a lot heavier then they was 20 years ago.
The only place to get the tractor and triler in was between the laundry
room and the pond which was not convient.
After three loads I got smarter
and built a ramp over the stream that almost worked. Had to clear
some ground to get the tractor close to the ramps.
Finally I got back to tearing
out the mountain which only took me three day's. Hey it was hot and
I was slow. |
Only
had this thing for three years and still had the break oil in it so I tooks
the time to change it, the oil that is. At least it was something
I could do in the shade and there do seem to be a lack of same around here.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
So back to the project, this
mini mountain was a habitat for small critters like toads and lizards.
I had tunnels and caves all thru it and as I was tearing it down I seen
a lot of lizards head for the bigger rock pile.
x

FINALLY I got close to the
finish of the tear down and did have a few challanges like the BIG chunkes
of rock.

But I got it handled and then
tried to handle the mess on the wall. I put tar paper between the
rocks and the wall to protect the wall, Should have used something
else cuz it stuck to the wall and I spent 6 hours getting it off.
Also left behind some stians.

Finally it was time to cement
in where the rocks was at so like Monte I calls in the cement truck.

It sure hurt to do it but had
to chunk off a good part of this tree. The lower branch gave some
good shade but just did
not need it inside the gazebo.
So trying not to drop it on my fish house I climbs up and chunks off some
of the top.

Saturday on the 5th of June
I finally got the bottom part of the frame up. Had to set it up so
I could build landing pads for
the legs with a bolt in the
cement to hold this thing down. At least I hope it does. This
leg wasn't bad being it came just
to the edge of the stream
that comes off the fish pond. I had to chunk off the top of the rock
that was a duzie of a job.

This end sit inside the stream
so I had to make a box for it to sit on. A whole lot went into finishing
this thing like the missing
parts I had to fight to get but finally it was time to put the top on.

One
would thunk that that woule be that but one would not know me iffen they
thunked that. Firestes thing to notice would be the 'dirt' area on
the right by the stream. Once again I calls in a cement truck and
fixed it.
So after coffee with Big Al,
Monte and family was trying to get lost in Carles Bad Caverns, I stops
at Lowe's and
got some cement. By
noon this job was done and it was so hot the cement dried as fast as I
got it on the ground.

What ever do you mean "STILL
NOT DONE" ! I got to checking behind the siding where the mini mountain
was and all the wood was rotted out. As it would happen while Monte
and family was trying to fall in the Grand Canyon the guys that put my
windows in was next door and when ask they gave me a
price to do the job with new siding that was cheaper then doing it my own
self.


Good job guy's, NOW it's a
done deal ~

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