demolition derby

The other day I woke up, made my cup of tea as per usual and looked out the kitchen window to find this little face staring back at me. Oh hello.

His name was Patch, and his owner was none other than...an excavator driver!! This could only mean one thing: it was the-day-the-trees-come-down day! Hazzah! To the west of the little farmhouse is (or rather was) a stand of 14 cypress trees, not incredibly big but enough to cause a horrible mess on the carport roof and surrounds as well as blocking a lot of light, being in totally the wrong spot and generally looking fairly ugly. They were our number one priority to get rid of, but our most important job was also the biggest, most expensive and energy, time and effort sucking. Observe our mini forest:

The west side of our house is paddock - as in no fence, the house is the fence so to speak. So look out the bathroom, study or sewing room window and you have a sheep literally staring back at you. Baaaaa! This area with the trees is preventing us from putting up a fence, them and THIRTY NINE other tree stumps I counted in that area which also need to be removed so we can make this part of our lawn and garden. Also included in this area was an old hothouse, well half of what used to be one anyway, an old incinerator, a pile of concrete and rocks, general rubbish and a fuel tank. The hot house was demolished care of Mr M and a sledge hammer and the fuel tank moved. Don't worry though, we're saving those bricks to use for our brick paths I want in the garden.

Please bear in mind this was a 40 degree day so we got demolishing early at 6 o'clock in the morning! Then the real demolition began with pushing over the cypress trees, which was quite easy as they were half dead anyway and fell exactly where we wanted them too (i.e. away from the house, carport and powerline).

As the heat scorched down the last three trees were proving tricky. Two cypress at the end and a blackwood were leaning towards the carport, they could fell them to the north except there is a powerline there, perhaps not a good idea. So our trusty man with the gear Johnny retired for the day to come back in the morning with a cable to secure the tree and pull it the right way. Not before Mr M and him trying to pull the tree and losing a big branch on top of the carport!! New roof coming soon anyway so no harm done. Oh yeah and did I mention we had a party to go to that night, had no fence around the house so had to build one fast, left the door to the storage room behind the carport open, came back after a shower and found a ram making himself at home? Cue Mr M in his suit and me in my cocktail dress and heels chasing a ram about the backyard running very late.

 

The next morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed (read: a wee bit hungover) we got back to demolition business. Johnny returned with cables to support the tree and coax it the right way whilst I stayed well clear and prayed that it didn't fall on the house!

Then with a pull from the Manitou at Mr M's end, a push from Johnny's end and a wave to signal when to do both from me (plus camera in hand) dooooowwwnnnn came the blackwood....

Push it all up into a massive bonfire, try and level out the ground, pick up a heap of sticks, roots, rocks and even more rubbish and the finished product looks something a little bit like this:



So now after work every day we spend our time with a giant smudger behind the tractor and the Manitou scooping up soil and roots and sticks and debris, levelling it all out, making a hole, filling it in. Very monotonous. I have been driving in the tractor over the top of it all with the smudger and Mr M has been following in the Manitou. It will all be worth it though when I have my big lawn and maybe even an orchard out this side of the house. Remind me of it then! Here are our sweet rides parked up for the night, his and hers :)

I can now tick one thing off my farmhouse goals list. Satisfaction!