10.19.2014

Yesterday was another overnight and early morning rain day.  I had to run into Staples for the fire school in the morning.  Jim headed out to the land for a bit but it was too sloppy to work - he ended up doing some straightening up of the back of the truck before heading home for lunch.  We left for church early and finally were able to replace Jim's work shoes - they had more holes than material on the top!  It ended up being a beautiful evening - the trees are just at peak color and are so beautiful. 

This morning when I walked to the post office, I tried to capture some of the brilliance of the mountains from the bridge over the Hudson River.  Not real successful but still pretty.
 

 

When I got to the site, Jim had already figured out a way to get the first piece of the next section up.  This is the section that he thought he would have to get help with - this is the 16 gauge metal, so it's heavy, plus each sheet is 36" wide instead of 24", and then it is over 13' long!  Each piece weighs about 115 pounds!

 

Jim was cutting the next piece and getting ready to put it up.

 

 

Here's the way he ended up getting the piece up...after he cut it to size, punched the holes, and ground down the finish, he dragged it over where he wanted it.

Then he walked it up...

...and then got it straight...

...and laid it down against the beam.

Here's the ingenious part...he set the end into the bucket of the Bobcat and lifted it up!

Then he had to scramble up the ladder and dragged it out of the bucket and onto the other section of decking.

Next, he had to flip it over so it was the right direction for installation.  Then he went down and got another piece cut and repeated all of that.

He had to make sure that the first piece was in the exact position - the first piece is always the most critical.

Time to get the welder in the Bobcat and all set up.

After he got the first piece all welded, it was time to move the next piece over.  He moved the Bobcat out of the way and pushed the scaffolding back into place.

Then he had to drag the piece over - not an easy task over the bumpy decking already in place.

And then he pushed it until he had enough to work with from below.

He had to get down and then up on the scaffolding to pull it into the right position.

Whew!  All done and time to weld!

Again, a repeat of all of that to get the third piece into position.

Pulling it from down below.

The deck looks really big now!  We were just thrilled that Jim was able to come up with a way to get these deck pieces into place by himself.  Of course, after watching how Jim moved the pieces of decking from the finished side over the other section, I asked him how he got the first piece into place since there was nothing to slide it over.  He said I wouldn't have wanted to see - it involved standing on the top of the Bobcat.  Ugh! 

The temperatures dropped today and there was enough of a breeze that it made it feel even colder than the actual temperature that hung around the mid-40s.  As we were finishing up, the sun was going down and the sky was just beautiful.  Now that some of the trees have lost their leaves, you can once again really see the mountain ranges from every way you turn on the lot.  Gorgeous!