Monday, December 20, 2010

Step 2: Getting Rid of Dangerous Trees and The Ongoing Quest for Firewood

If you read a post of mine from earlier this year called "The Big Move" you would have read a story of toil and despair about how I moved a shed from one side of my yard to the other so that I could make way for a new shed to use for firewood storage. This is a short continuation of the overall project which "The Big Move"was pivotal in completing. This weekend, while all you normal people were resting at home, out at church or making the last dash for holiday shopping before the big day, I was happily ending the lives of 20 maple trees in my backyard.

As I mentioned before, this all started with my desire to build a wood shed in a specific, out of the way spot in my yard. After removing the existing shed, I decided to wait for winter so that I could cut down the corkscrewed and slanted maple trees which were growing over that area. Not only did their slant and the soft soil pose an immediate threat to the shed I wish to build, but they are also choking out many young evergreen trees and within two more years, would have been tall enough to damage my house if they fell in a windstorm.

The recent weeks of unrelenting rain we went through made this a little less than an ideal day, but being eager to make headway, I thought I should take advantage of the sunshine while I still could. The trees would be wet, but not sticky with sap or heavy with leaves (though they are formidably heavy, even without).

My main chainsaw is Husqvarna 51 that my dad recently gave to me, I only asked to borrow it, but he hasn't cut down any trees in years, so he just gave it to me instead. I went out to buy a new chain for it and got a carry case while I was out (if you ever transport a chainsaw, you'll know that keeping the mess off your truck's upholstery is a serious chore). The case was for a Stihl, but cost half what the Husqvarna case would cost, so I guess plastic is just expensive in Sweden. The saw has a 51cc engine which is powerful for it's size and a 20" bar and chain. My secondary chainsaw is a Poulan Pro 260 which has a 40cc engine and an 18" bar and chain.

I used the Husqvarna 51 to cut all the trees down, and the Poulan to do most of the limbing and bucking once the trees were on the ground. There are a lot more opportunities to get your chain stuck while taking off limbs and the Poulan is just not strong enough to go through a tree of considerable size, where the Husqvarna slices through trees feel like I'm carving turkey, with a lot more sawdust.

The two most dangerous problems you will generally run into when felling a tree are when the tree doesn't finish falling, such as when it's caught on something (usually other trees) or when the tree falls or starts to fall in the wrong direction. In the 20 trees I cut down, I couldn't help but run into these problems at least a couple of times.

In my opinion, the more immediately dangerous of the two problems is usually the tree falling in the wrong direction, specifically when there is something in one direction that you don't want to inadvertently destroy. In my case, however, I positioned the notch so that if the tree did fall the wrong way, it would land in a clear area without hitting the house.

Everyone is probably fairly familiar with the principals of felling a tree. You look at the variables which will make a tree fall in a particular direction (hopefully that is the direction you want, or at least a directly that will work), then you notch the tree on that side going far enough through to encourage the tree to fall to one side, but not far enough to cause the weight of the tree to pinch your bar and trap your chainsaw inside. Once you have made the notch by making two angled cuts, you then cut through the opposite (back) side until the tree begins to fall. This makes the tree fall away from you and your chainsaw. 

In the case of this tree, it didn't have any apparent lean at all, but split into three large trunks half way up, so it was especially heavy at the top (a classic characteristic of many maple trees). I did have some difficulty making the notch on this tree since it was on a steep hill, but I guess that the notch I made was just not big enough to convince the tree to fall down the hill towards my creek. When I cut almost half way through the tree, it began to lean very slightly to the rear, not enough to trap my chainsaw, but enough that I could see it wanted to fall in the other direction.

These are the moments which take some critical thinking. If I continued cutting, it would almost definitely trap my chainsaw, adding a thrilling element of added danger to the already complicated situation. If I tried to cut through the back without using a notch, or tried to make a new notch on the back side using my first cut, I would also be likely to pinch my bar, trapping the chainsaw. In both scenarios, there was no way to guarantee that the tree would fall in the right direction anyway, since it was only just barely leaning backwards from my first cut. A tree trunk spinning and falling in any direction would be very dangerous.

I decided that the tree was still strong enough that I could make a new notch on the "back" of the tree, about 18" up the trunk from my first cut. Then I could cut through from behind and get the tree to fall toward the house. This could have been done lower than my first attempt as well, but I felt like there would be less pressure above my first cut and therefore less of a chance at pinching my bar and it would lower the chance that the pressure from the falling tree would be just enough to break apart what was left of my first cut, sending chunks of wood in all directions. The operating principal in that assumption was that it would be falling off of my first cut instead of with it (this assumption was correct). The tree came to the ground with ease and is now resting in a location which actually makes it easier to limb.

The main reason that I feel as though this type of problem is considerably less dangerous (though still dangerous enough) than a tree which is caught on other trees is that, if you catch it soon enough, falling backwards is much easier to control or correct since the variable forces are limited. If I really wanted to, I could have strung up my 2-ton puller and pulled the tree in the direction I wanted it to go, and I could have done so easily and with plenty of time while the tree stood strong.

I ran into the other problem three times, but was able to solve them all with relative certainty. In the case of my first stuck tree, it was about a 13" tree which became caught in the tops of some nearby, younger trees, which kept the cut trunk resting on the stump at an angle. I first tried to winch this off, using the trunk of a larger tree I had cut down a few minutes before. The winch came close to freeing the top of the tree, but I just couldn't get it far enough to pull the tree down. In my next attempt I made a new cut in the stump, leaving a little more space for the trunk to fall. This caused the trunk to fall off the stump, but was not enough momentum to free the tangled tops. Now having the base of the trunk touching the ground, I had a better angle, so I made a new notch in the top side of the trunk and cut upward from the bottom a little, then went back to the notched top and cut the rest of the way through. The base fell away and the tree finally came lose and landed on the ground.

The danger in that type of situation is that so many variables could bring the tree down and the addition of a spin or roll caused by the branches could land the tree just about anywhere. A strong wind or surrounding branches finally giving way could cause the tree to come down at any moment.

Luckily, the other two "stuck" trees I ran into were much easier to fix, both were falling down my ravine, and when they got stuck, they were at such an angle that they were already almost to the ground. In both cases the tops simply got caught in the branches of the millions of other maple trees on my property. One of them was just barely pinned to the stump it was cut from, so I used a sledge to smash the end off. Since I never had to enter the path of the falling tree, I'd call that one the safest.

The other one, however, was part of a cluster of tree trunks that grew out of the same root system, Since it was on the outside and I only had one more trunk to cut in that cluster, I decided to let the weight of the last falling tree push it down the rest of the way. I notched the next trunk in the right direction, made the cut and backed away as one tree knocked the other down like a bowling pin. Another case where careful thinking allowed me to make everything safe again, without putting myself in the path of any serious danger.

Aside from those adventures, the rest of the trees went down quickly and smoothly, landing exactly where I wanted them and without any problems. Some of the trees were as small as six inches, and a few were as big as about eighteen, but the average tree was about nine to ten inches in diameter. You would think that taking out so many like this would have a huge impact in my backyard, but when you look at the first picture, you'll see that I would have to clear about 100 small maples before there was a major difference.

This picture shows where nine of the 20 trees fell, directly into my backyard.

















This pictures shows how close the very tops were to being tall enough to hit the house. As I mentioned before, in just two more years they would have hit the house when they came down.


























This is a picture of the large tree which decided to fall back towards the house.





















Here is a limb which broke under it's own weight from the force of the fall down into my ravine.
 You can't see the depth in this picture, but the trunk of that tree is about 15' below the stump I took the picture from.

































This is the pair of trees in which I used one to knock the other down since it didn't fall all the way.
 This is the base of the same tree, if you look closely at the moss you can see water droplets pouring off. The ground was so wet that this stump was pouring out water.

































This is another large limb which broke under it's own weight when it crashed down into my ravine. I'll get lots of good firewood out of this one, I just have to figure out an easy way to get it all back up the hill.

I have a few more maple trees that I would like to take out on my property, but since I took care of the ones which posed any type of danger to my house or shed, I don't think I'll be taking down quite as many at one time in the near future.

One of my secondary goals in thinning the trees was to make room and give light to the young evergreen saplings which are struggling to grow under the thick canopy. This should give them some space for now, most of my future felling will revolve around even more space for them, but this will be enough for now.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

A Good Price for Wood Floors

Because I can't sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, I've been working on installing hardwood floors in our Bedrooms. It all started a few weeks ago when I found a Craigslist ad for pre-finished birch hardwood for $2/square foot. Since our carpets are the original carpets for our 1989 home, and the original owners smoked a lot, I have been waiting a long time for this day to come.

The flooring outlet place we bought the wood from in West Bremerton had just about 500 square feet, which should be enough to do all three bedrooms and the hallway between them. Since I already had an air compressor, along with many other tools, all I needed was a finishing nailer and a lot of nails.

We started with Coughlin's room, which was in the worst shape since someone who stayed with us previously had some not-so potty trained dogs. Brandy removed the carpet, pad and tack strips and I pulled up most of the staples (they used an inordinate amount) and took out the trim as well as the closet doors.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the subflooring. Luckily, even though our home was built in the late 80's, we have solid plywood floors. I think it's 5/8th", but haven't done any drilling through to check. It doesn't sag and it's very solid, I am glad about this because it was a popular trend at the time to put in particle board, which is horrible.






All of the small yellow spongy looking spots represent a staple for the pad, they went really overboard.

After everything was removed, we put down 15lb asphalt paper (for roofing) to provide a moisture barrier and to improve the insulation, even if only slightly. I used my staple gun to attach the pieces that I rolled out and cut with about a 6" overlap.

Next we put in the floor, some sites and how-to books say to use a flooring stapler, but those are expensive (even to rent) and so big that you can only use them on about half the job, since they don't fit in the small spaces. The device itself is about 12x12 total with a mallet activated button on the top which you have to hit to drive the staples. After reading up on it, I decided that a simple finishing nailer would be better for me, it fits into fairly tight spaces if you get creative, and with three or four nails per board, I haven't noticed any signs of looseness.

The first room I finished was Coughlin's, he stayed in our guest bedroom for a couple weeks while we finished his room up.

Here is his finished room looking in the door (you can see Kitty Cow enjoying the new floors).


This is the closet side of the room finished.


And this is the other side of his room.


The next room to work on was the hallway, since all three rooms and the hall will be connecting, I have to go from one job to the next, maintaining contact the whole time. Even if I measured out the spaces perfectly in advance, there would be no way to get the wood to match up as nicely as I have by going from one room to the next without breaking the connection.

The hallway required a lot of small detail work, so it took just about the same amount of time as Coughlin's bedroom. I had to remove the trim on our three bedroom doors, one bathroom door and had to take out entirely the door for the hallway linen closet.

This picture shows one of the heavily detail oriented corners of the hallway, the door to Coughlin's room and the bathroom being just a few inches apart. I had to trim the flooring and the door trim very carefully. You can see the very small gap between the door-frames and the floor where you can see a bit of black tar paper. Those gaps look big in this zoomed in picture, but from a stand in normal light you can't see them at all.


The small 1" trim pieces that go in the corner were pretty beat up, but they are hardly noticeable with normal lighting so I decided to keep them anyway, it was easier than finding and cutting new trim, especially since it wouldn't match.

Here is the view looking into our bedroom. You can see our nasty old carpet with the exposed pad below. It will be coming out soon as part of this project, so we didn't put any effort into making it look nice for the time being.


On the left you can see the edge going into the bathroom. I had to make careful measurements and cuts to get all the pieces to line up perfectly. I will probably get a small wood reducer strip to cover the threshold there, so the wood must be perfectly flush.

This is the view into Coughlin's room from our room. You can see the hallway closet to the left of Coughlin's door.


Here is the view from the living room into the hallway. We still have to work on the guest bedroom on the left.


I turned the last piece sideways so that the floor was held in tighter and it gives me a dividing point where I can change to a different color, stain, size or grain in the living room, since I don't have enough of this birch to do more than our three bedrooms and the hallway.

Hopefully I can find a deal as good as this for the rest of the house so I can do the living room and family room for a low cost.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Waste Consuming Reproduction Factories

In other words, I got four hens a few weeks ago.

Peter and Karen had raised these four hens from chicks at their home in Miller Bay Estates, not knowing that their homeowner's association covenant did not allow any livestock of any sort, no matter how small.

They didn't want to risk selling them to someone who would turn them into meat and they also wanted to be sure that the four girls could stay together; Knowing that I had intentions of turning half of my garden shed (the one I talked about in "The Big Move" no less) into a coop and creating a large pen in an otherwise unusable part of my yard, I came to mind right away.

I went over a few weeks ago and helped them take down their temporary coop, both hauling it away for them and scoring some free lumber and wire with which I could construct my own.

Since I have a few things to do before I can build their new coop and pen area, I made a temporary coop of my own using a combination of scrap lumber which I already had and the parts I took away from Peter and Karen. In the end I only threw away a few unusable pieces of lumber and wire from their original temporary coop.

I made a basic lumber frame out of 4x4's which used to be fence posts that were part of the fence which was falling over at the end of my garden and 2x4's from the fence which used to be falling over in my front yard.

Being a tall person I was concerned about standing room, so I went with a simple lean-to design which gives me enough head room to stand and keeps rain from collecting on the roof.

Here is the finished product.


They were using an igloo doghouse as the nestbox, and instead of building a custom nest box, I went for the quick solution of moving forward with the doghouse. The only alteration I made was building a short base for it to rest on, giving the chickens more ground room and making it easier to get eggs since it is at a higher level. I have some more lumber which I may use to build a more appropriate nest box, but whether or not I do that depends on how soon winter comes and if I will be able to finish their new coop instead. For now, the doghouse is a great summer home, as bulky as it is.

The odd angled boards which seem out of place in the foreground are roosts, which the hens love.

I made a ramp which they can use to get up to the nestbox, but they usually bypass the ramp and hop directly in.



In addition to the ramp, you can see that I made another small stand for their water dish. With chickens, anything that is on the ground is fair game for roosting, so their water was getting knocked over or filled with dirt daily. Now that I raised it up to head level for them, they don't knock it over or get mud in it anymore. One of their favorite places to take dirt baths is right below the stand.

Another item I made out of scrap lumber was a small feeder, which you can see below the ramp (it stays extra dry down there).


It's pretty easy to build these, I used scrap 2x6's to build the box, and though it's hard to see in this picture, I bent some old wire fencing over the top in an A form so that they have 4x2" slots to eat from. This keeps them from walking in the food or standing on the feeder. It also prevents them from fighting over the food, it is hard to explain but if you watch chickens eat they are constantly nabbing whatever they can right out of the mouths of their friends, and when they are trying to chase each other away from whatever they've found, they do so by pecking at each other in the same fashion.

They all came with names, in this picture the one looking at the camera in the back is Sadie, and the one pecking the ground is Macie. Sadie is a little bit bald on her head.


In this picture Sadie is again in the back, the closest chicken is Malalie and the one with a little more red around it's neck on the left is Sophie.... I think... We have a hard time telling the two apart.


Here you have Sophie in the foreground, Malalie just behind her and in the far back, partially blocked by the roost is Macie. Sadie is the one showing her butt to the camera.


They produce 3 to 4 eggs per day on average, some days they only leave us 1 and sometimes one of them doubles up and they make 5.

The coop is where they spend most of their time, but they get to come out at least once a day, we let them roam the yard freely with supervision (they love the garden, but we aren't done growing vegetables yet this year). They mostly hang around the fence and the shed, digging in the plants to find slugs and insects. If one of them finds a slug, they usually run across the yard at full speed to try keeping it for themselves, but the others chase them down and it's mayhem until one of them finally eats it.

Coughlin absolutely loves the chickens, even though he was afraid of them the first day. It only took him a few hours to start mimicking their clucking. When he wants to go see them now (which is several times a day) he grabs our pants and pulls while saying "bock, bock, bock" in a deep, scratchy voice. He will make a sound which is also very close to the word "chicken" now, but he will only say it after a lot of coaching.

Every night after work Coughlin and I go out together to pull up dandelions from the yard or weeds from the garden to feed to the chickens. Dandelion leaves are one of their favorite foods (aside from slug of course). It's mostly an excuse to work on weeding the lawn, but I pull a bucket full of dandelions out of the ground and dump them into the coop nightly and by the next morning there is usually no trace left of the large pile of greens. They consume the dandelions completely, tearing off every leaf first, then the stems and eventually the roots.

I usually set aside a handful for Coughlin and I to feed to the chickens ourselves. He brings one of his small chairs from the porch (with much grunting) and sits in front of the wire while I hold dandelions leaves and let the hens tear them up. Coughlin will occasionally hold out one or two per night, but the chickens grab it so quickly that it startles him (which he laughs about) so he prefers to drop them through the chicken wire instead. When we run out, he usually grabs strands of grass to feed them until I tell him that it's time to go in and say goodbye to the chickens. He waves his hand and says "buh" to them, turning around and repeating the process several times before we get to the porch.

The chickens eat about as much feed as Abby does in a day, but their feed is much cheaper. We feed them a mix of chicken feed pellets and scratch grains, which are cracked grains of wheat, corn, rye, etc. A 50lb bag of feed is about $14 and a 50lb bag of scratch grains is about $10. We also mix in some crushed oyster shell and grit every once in a while, the oyster shell providing enough calcium to produce egg shells and the grit being for digestion. Those two supplements are not completely necessary for us since our chickens are out often enough to forage for what they need or want. They are made mostly for chickens living in more confined spaces on an egg farm or otherwise.

Ultimately, I'll have a pen for them which borders the garden, which will also be fenced, and during the fall and winter I will let them keep my garden weed free and fertilized for me, while during the spring and summer they can eat blackberry bushes and stinging nettles which cover my hillside.

It's a pretty good trade in my opinion. I give the chickens all of the stuff I don't want and they turn it into eggs which I do want.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Poncho































Our sweet, precious Chihuahua, Poncho, died last night.

On Friday morning I awoke to find Poncho on his back, attempting to roll himself over without success. He was very stiff and cold, and he was unable to move his neck. I rolled him over and checked his eyelids, which were clear (no nictating membrane). He was very conscious and present, eyes tracking well, responding to touches and interaction, but unable to move.

I massaged him for a few minutes to loosen up his legs and checked his heartbeat which was weak and irregular, but his breathing was fairly consistent. Brandy made an appointment with the vet and I moved him to a bed in the living room, on top of a heating pad to keep his temperature up and help relax his muscles. He rested easily but was still responsive when given attention.

I suspected that this was either some type of inadvertent poisoning, or severe arthritis since he was showing signs of cognizance. Poncho became less responsive as the morning went on and when Brandy took him to the vet, they confirmed our fear that it was a poisoning and that there was not anything which could be done. They considered a feeding tube to force a charcoal slurry, but they didn't have any tubes which were small enough for Poncho, and they were worried about potential damage from doing so.

The only options were euthanasia or waiting. Since he did not seem to be enduring incredible pain or suffering, Brandy brought him home. Neither of us will use euthanasia except as a last resort, because there is a large difference between an animal dying and determining that an animal will die and killing it. Given his age and his recent weight loss, I didn't think Poncho had much of a chance, but I wasn't willing to personally reduce that chance to nothing.

When he got home, though he was less cognizant, he was more relaxed and his vital signs became slightly stronger. He did have a couple of short seizures and a bout or two of panting, but otherwise he was fairly quiet and mostly slept.

When I got home at about 9:00pm he was howling softly, not sounding as if in pain, but softly, very similar to his singing which many of you are familiar with. I sat by him and pet him as I diagnosed this problem and decided that it was not an intentional noise, but due to his troubled breathing. I turned him over to see if he could breath better on the other side and his breathing became less strenuous and he stopped howling.

Coughlin thought that it was hilarious when Poncho barked or howled. Coughlin was tired, and also excited to see me so he was being fairly noisy. I decided to move Poncho into a comfortable bed in the garage for the night since it was mutually beneficial. Coughlin would fall asleep, without the chance of interruption and Poncho could enjoy some rest in darkness and silence (reading up on dog poisoning today reminded me that bright and loud environments induce seizures). It was a good thing that I did, because Coughlin became much louder after he first fell asleep because he woke up vomiting, coming down with a stomach flu that Brandy just recovered from.

I laid Poncho in his bed and covered the kennel partially in a blanket to reduce any noise or lights and told Poncho that we loved him dearly, but that if he could not make it, to leave us.

After starting a load of laundry and cleaning up a couple of vomitings, I had a long internal debate as to whether I should check on Poncho before going to bed. It was a matter of deciding whether I would lose more sleep knowing his condition (still fighting or at permanent rest) or not knowing. Since I had first put him out there, I had felt fairly depressed, up until about ten minutes prior to my internal debate about checking on him, at which point I felt suddenly relieved at the strong sensation that he was no longer living. Which goes to say that the real internal debate was not whether I would check on him or not (because I knew that I would have to) but whether it would bother me more to find him still fighting or deceased.

I opened the door and turned on the light to find him in the same comfortable position with his eyes open, staring into space. I have always wondered at the fact that most bodies have open eyelids. They say it is because your eyelids are relaxed when in their open state, but I like to think that they must see something the living aren't able to comprehend.

I checked for his pulse and breathing and left him there for the morning. To answer my internal debate, I slept well knowing that he was finally gone. It's funny the kind if impact such a small creature can have on your life, compared to our life-span, we know them for such short times, but they teach us so much about love, loyalty and compassion.

I buried him today, below a young cedar tree, and I spread wildflower seeds over his grave.

Instead of offering condolences , if you knew Poncho, post a story of your favorite memory; for those who don't have a story to share, no need for apologies, everyone knows what it is like to lose an animal and we appreciate your thoughts of kindness.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Goodbye Old Friend

Sunday morning someone finally purchased my 2000 Suzuki Bandit GSF600S. They were only the second person to come look at it, even though I've been listing it off and on for several months. I took a break from listing during the winter months since I didn't want anyone to come out and take a test ride in the rain (leaving me to clean it up again) and because not many people are in the market at that time, but this is a great demonstration of the fact that people are still not buying many toys with their money. I've sold a lot of motorcycles in the past and it has never taken me more than a week to make a deal with a buyer.

Before the interested buyer came out, I pulled the motorcycle out and started it up for a bit. It was nice outside so I took it for a ride to make sure it was sufficiently warmed up and the battery was charged enough for them to take a pleasant test ride. I'm going to miss the way that the Bandit handled, taking it out for the last ride reminded me how smooth and zippy the engine was when it was wound up to 9000 rpm.

The V-Star is certainly no comparison in that department, but it's considerably more comfortable, so it works much better for the distance trips and pleasure cruising I do more frequently these days.

I'll miss this motorcycle occasionally, but I'm glad to have yet another thing off of my very full to-do list.



Another person came by Sunday afternoon to look at the F-150. He was interested, but wants to tow a 3500lb sailboat, which the engine and transmission can haul, but the bumper hitch cannot. He indicated that he would look into hitches and get back to me today, I'll see if that goes anywhere or not.

Amidst all of this, I managed to till in the new plot for my garden. I had to remove a lot of large rocks left by the county when they were putting in their drain field for the storm drain system. I assume they used it to drive their heavy machinery over when they were working on it, otherwise they just dumped the extra rocks they had after completing the drain. In either case it was definitely annoying to dig them all out, but at least it is something I only have to do once.

I didn't plant any seeds yet, last year I planted on the last weekend in April, and it looks as though I will do the same this year. It seems like it will be warm enough to plant now, but I'll be too busy to do it any sooner. I look forward to an expanded crop this year and taking advantage of better sunlight.

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Big Move: Another Crazy Project I Dreamt Up Comes to a Close

It all came together unexpectedly. I sent a message to Ben (my "wood guy") a message to order my fire wood for next year, and I mentioned in passing that I was looking to move my garden shed and wondered if he would rent me his flatbed trailer for a weekend. I was surprised to find his generous response. I could borrow it for free if he could drop it off this weekend (March 12th) with my second load of firewood and that he'd happily pick it up the following Monday.

A sudden rush of calculations whiz through my mind, I've been planning to do this for more than a year, the thought of being able to wrap it all up in one day got my adrenaline flowing. I go over the plan in my head several times. I still had to finish clearing the new space, buy some concrete mix, get the posts in the ground. I had everything I needed aside from the concrete, more lists burned through my head, tools, beams, blocks, floor jack... As if a light goes off I decide that I can actually make this work. I respond to Ben with an affirmative, still in moderate disbelief that I had a free day on a weekend and that all of these plans could come together so quickly.

The pace of the project would not be my style at all, I tend to try for a patchwork plan of implementation, piecing things together at a slow and steady pace. I can easily adapt to rapid demands like this, but it was certainly not what I expected. The lack of time I have to dedicate to projects like these make a slower approach almost a given. Even now, being done, it's hard to believe that the whole project was completed like this.

The shed itself was situated in the North East corner of my yard, right on the edge of the hill, the veritable border where my level upper yard descends sharply into a creek filled ravine. The picture below doesn't make it look like much, but the floors were made with 2x6 studs and the structure is water tight, it has been a great garden shed but it has always been located in a very inconvenient spot. The whole reason for this move is that I want to build a large open woodshed (about 25' x 8') where I can store my firewood, lawn tractor, garden tools and everything else. This blue garden shed has been in that location and I need it to use as a place to store all my gardening implements until the new shed is made.

My first iteration of plans basically included dismantling the shed in place and storing everything on my covered patio while the new building was constructed, but after a lot of deliberation, I realized that the shed was not attached and could simply be moved instead. My first impulse was to rent a forklift; the shed (by my calculations it can't weigh more than 1200lbs at the most) was well within the capacity of a forklift, but I would have to overcome the obstacles of strapping it in place and having enough traction for the forklift to get across the yard. The problem with renting a forklift is that the cheapest forklift seemed to be about $140 for four hours, and the rental company had to drop it off and pick it up for you. Which meant that if this didn't work, I would be out the cost of forklift rental with nothing to show for it.

Someone I spoke to suggested building skids out of 4x6 beams and dragging the shed across the yard, and also suggested trying to roll it with drain pipe. As I thought these over, I realized that skids or rolling it on pipe would both require me to jack the shed up, at which point I realized that if I could raise it a few inches for skids or pipes, I could raise it high enough to put it on a flatbed trailer and tow it into place. This would be a lot cheaper than renting a forklift and it would cause minimal damage to my both my yard and shed at the same time. That settled it, months of thinking things over in my mind and I finally had a flatbed and it wasn't going to cost me anything to use, I just had to do the work in one day.

Here is a picture of the shed before the move. It needs to be painted, and the door that was installed was an interior door (just veneer) so it's falling apart, but if you were to inspect the studs and plywood of this structure, you would agree about how solid and move-worthy this shed truly is.



I got up around 6:30 on Saturday and started work immediately. The first step would have to be digging post holes and setting the posts in concrete. I went out on Friday night to buy the concrete and I already had some short cedar posts which I had purchased as part of the lumber for my larger and future-planned woodshed project.

I measured out my area, cleared out a few bits of brush and put two green fence posts in the ground where I expected the rear corners of the shed to align. I used my digging spade to dig the rear post holes, going much larger than I thought was necessary to make sure that I had a very firm footing in the otherwise soft soil at the edge of my hill. The first two holes I dug were too close together, but it only took a few minutes to move both over a few inches each.

I went 16" into the ground on each hole, then picked out a short post and used soil to level it. When I was ready for the concrete, I hooked up my garden tractor's small trailer and used it to haul the 80lb bags of concrete as well as the tools I would need.



My dad loaned me a concrete mixing container which he's had around and has not used for a very long time. It basically amounts to an over-sized kitty litter box, but it works very well for mixing up concrete, I was able to fit one 80lb bag at a time and mix it fairly effectively.

Before pouring in the concrete, I used my large level to re-affirm the placement of my posts. Since the trailer was about 90" wide, I made the posts a little more than 8' apart on the inside edges. Since each post was also about 10" wide, this meant that the posts would come within about 6 inches of the outside edge of the shed when it was in place.

Here is a picture of the first post after dropping concrete in. Behind the post you can see the green steel fence-post I was using as a marker for the rear corner of the shed.



Partially because my rear post-holes were oversize due to the relocation of them, I used two full 80lb bags of concrete in each. When I got to the front post-holes I was able to get away with about 50lbs of concrete in each since I did not have to move them and I had a better idea of the size I would actually need. I only bought four 80lb bags of concrete, so after putting in the two rear posts I was all out of concrete.

Since my Dad was coming over to help me out I called him to see if he could bring four more bags with him, which he agreed to do. I still had several other tasks to complete before my Dad arrived, so I got started on them after a short lunch. The first task I took on was digging the two front post-holes. As mentioned before, I was much more effective in making these appropriately sized by using my post-hole digger more than my digging spade. I selected some appropriately sized posts and made sure everything was ready for the concrete to arrive. All of the posts, front and rear, were buried 16" in the ground, leaving about 16" above ground. My plan was to make these all level by using a 2x4 and fencing level to mark them and my chainsaw to cut off the excess after the concrete was well set.

Having secured the future of the posts, I moved on to the trailer. Since Ben mostly uses this trailer to haul rounds of wood, he has mounted 2x4's and plywood around the outside edges. All of this would have to come off before the shed could go on. I carefully removed every bolt and washer, numbering all the parts of the frame with pencil and drawing arrows to show the upward and forward directions. Ben had warned me in advance that the trailer would only go together one way, so I made a concerted effort to note all of the details that I could.

After getting all of the bolts out, the side panels came out fairly easily, though the OSD board that they were made of was definitely not light. I set all of the parts near my patio in a place where I would not inadvertently run over them, and where they could easily be put back on the trailer the next day.

Having finished that, I moved a few of the telephone poles which were in place to separate my garden from the rest of my yard (after I till my garden this year it will become a retaining wall separating my higher level lawn from my lower garden). I rolled the poles well out of the way and made sure that the invisible fence wire underneath would be safe to back over.

The next task was to take the tractor back to the garage to collect some heavy things like a couple of blocks, jack stands (which I didn't end up using at all) and my 3-ton floor jack. I parked in the front so that I could load up the concrete as soon as my dad arrived, which he did as soon as I pulled the tractor around. We loaded up the concrete and all the tools I would need and headed around to the back yard again (talking a little about my new truck that I hadn't yet told him about).

I dropped the jack and stands off at the shed as I drove by and then headed over to the posts. We mixed up the concrete (a lot faster with two people), poured it in for both posts, ensured that they were level and then went up to move some things out of the shed while they set.

Since I was operating on short notice, I didn't have much time to move everything out of the shed. I had taken a few things to the patio already after getting home from work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but I still had a lot of garden tools, two air conditioners (which I moved with the tractor's trailer) and some other things. We moved everything except for the air conditioners right outside the door and stacked them near my fence line to the left of the shed (out of the way but still saving time). There was also a considerable amount of scrap lumber (a lot of which the former owners left) under the shed which we had to move out of the way.

I pulled out two 4x6 beams from my pile of lumber next to the shed, set the jack on the ground and after double and triple checking everything, we started raising the shed on the right side. I initially tried to just use one of the floor joists, which was a 2x6's, but after raising it about half an inch, I could see that it was bending more than I wanted, so I lowered it again and then started over using one of the 4x6 beams directly under the floor joist. I don't have a picture of this since I wasn't rolling around in the dirt and didn't want my camera to be smashed, but to describe it the best way I can, the 4x6 was running directly under the floor joist the whole depth of the shed on the right side, and was sticking out 2 to 3 feet on either side of the shed. This allowed the weight to spread enough that the shed held steadily.

Once we had the shed high enough, we pulled out the cinder blocks which it had been resting on (most of them were thoroughly filled with dirt and grass), then put them them back in place, along with a few pieces of scrap lumber to raise it up. We started to raise the other side by using the same process on the left, except that we accessed it from the rear of the shed where there was more room to get the jack and beam in place (the ground at the left front was much higher).

One of my chief complaints about this shed in it's original location was that it was never leveled properly after the county finished their drain field behind it. The short version of the story is that the county has a storm drain that releases into a small drain field in our back yard. The original owners back filled the original and it was apparently causing problems with clogging on the other end. So while the house was up for sale and nobody was there to object, the county came in and rebuilt the drain field. When they did so, they dismantled a fence which used to border the property and apparently had to move the shed, at least that is what I assume since we weren't there to see it all. It was never a serious problem, but it was just un-level enough that the door would not stay open and tools could only be stacked against the back wall since they would just fall down if you leaned them against the front.

This problem was causing stability issues after we raised the left side of the shed and moved back to the right. Just before we started jacking up the right again, the shed shifted about 6 inches to the left, moving it's weight onto three of the temporary posts (one now at a 45 degree angle) and the fourth being unused entirely. The first step in correcting this was to shift a little more weight back onto the temporary post which was completely unused. We carefully placed the temporary post back in place and used more blocks of wood to raise it's height. After getting it as tight as we could without jacking it up any further, we moved back to the left side and started raising it off of the temporary posts which had fallen over.

We made a more secure footing for the temporary posts and reset the shed's weight, that was basically the only excitement we had in the process of raising the shed up. We progressed in the same manner, doing a few inches at a time on each side and gradually making the temporary posts higher and higher. After the first two rotations of this process, we started using large firewood rounds which were delivered to me the day before, at every resting point, I would re-measure to see how much higher we would have to go. I also took measurements to ensure that we left enough space on either side to fit the trailer underneath when the time came. In the end, each temporary post consisted of one 18" wood round, a cinder block and a 4x6 block. On the back posts we had to use a couple of additional 2x4's to level it out.

I used my 8lb sledge to break up the concrete ramp which used to go to the door (the poorly made concrete came apart easily) and we dug out a little bit of the dirt as well. There were all sorts of treasures left below the shed in addition to these things, I had to remove shards of glass from a broken window pain and a wide variety of other interesting wood and metal scraps.

I took my final measurements, checking for the 23 inches of clearance we would need in the front for the trailer to clear. We only had half an inch to spare, so I decided that we would back the trailer up to the shed with the truck, then disconnect it and walk it the remainder of the distance. This gave us a little more room to play with since the height of the hitch on the truck made the trailer raised slightly. Once underneath, we would back the truck up and reconnect, then lower the shed onto the trailer.

This all went very well, the trailer was pretty heavy, but it slid under the shed without a problem and we reconnected the truck with ease once the trailer was in place. I raised the shed just enough to remove the blocks and carefully lowered it down to the trailer deck, once the weight was resting fully, we quickly checked the tire clearance to make sure we weren't rubbing the deck. Having plenty of clearance to spare, we lowered the other side and checked again, everything was clear and well balanced.

Here is the truck in front of the shed just after it was lowered onto the trailer.


You can see the firewood rounds we used to prop it up. under the bottom right corner.

Here is a picture of the shed itself on the trailer. We used the ladder to put a 4x6 across the top to make it at least a little bit more secured on the trailer. I was going to use two of them, but one of them was not quite long enough to cross the whole roof and we were starting to run out of daylight.


While my dad used the 4x6 beam and ladder to secure the trailer, I started up my chainsaw and moved over to the posts to level them out.

Since the ground was not level, there was no way to measure the posts out for a perfectly level cut. The method I used was fairly simple and can be applied in any construction project where you are using posts on un-level ground. The problem is that you'll only be able to control how far your lowest point will be from the ground, the others portions will vary in distance depending on the change in slope.

In order to do this, all you need is a pencil, a long, straight board and a good level, the size of the level does not matter. All that you do is place your level in the center of the board, put one end of the board on your shortest post, then hold the board up to the post you intend to cut. Use the level to find out when you are level, then make your mark along the bottom of the board. Do the same for every other post, once you are done cutting, you can verify your accuracy by laying the board across each post. No matter which two posts you choose, the level bubble should always be floating in the middle. If there are any mistakes, trimming or using a shim should be fairly easy.

In my case I was using a chainsaw, which is unsatisfactorily sloppy for accurate cutting, but was the fastest way to make a cut where perfection didn't matter. In the end the cuts were a little slanted and uneven, but once the beam was laid over the top, it wasn't going to make a difference. My first cut was the biggest reduction of them all, I cut off about 12 inches of the post to bring it down to the right level, it was for the right front post. The two rear posts only had to shave off about 3 inches each.

When I was done, all of the cuts I made were about 1.25" taller than the post I started with as the lowest point. I assume that I inadvertently made my first mark across the top of the 2x4 and not the bottom, then measured the rest based on that inaccurate cut. In any case, instead of redoing all of the cuts, I simply used a 2x6 to bring the shortest post up to par (the perfect fit of the 2x6 is what makes me think I was measuring across the top of my board and not the bottom).

After getting the shed onto the trailer, I was feeling rather giddy. I had been laughing to myself for most of the afternoon at certain points when my ideas would actually come together. I was so tired and rushed that the entire jacking process seemed somewhat unreal as I went on a roller coaster of feelings, thinking that it was actually going to work and that the task was impossible. One of the key points in our eventual success was when we discovered that the stability of the shed required you to use the outermost joist of the shed as your fulcrum. The 36" difference in using the next joist in changed the pivot of the shed drastically, even though the majority of the weight was still secured on the opposite side, it was simply not stable. I believe that a denser or heavier item would probably never have the same problem in this case, but it was an interesting lesson. The most interesting part being that it was easiest to use the jack to raise the shed from one joist in from the end, even though the pivot points worked better from the outermost joist.

Having leveled the posts and cleared the way, I was ready to start moving. I was still in a general state of disbelief when I started. I told my dad that if for some reason the trailer pulled my truck and myself down the ravine and I died in a fiery ball of flames to tell everyone that I died doing what I love, which would have been true had it happened that way.

I put the truck in 4 wheel drive low in anticipation of the damp ground and heavy load and began to roll forward. The trailer jerked a lot at first, I went as slowly as I possibly could since the ground of my yard has a lot of dips. and the trailer was rocking quite a bit. I pulled as close to the far fence as I could, then got into reverse and began to turn slightly. The shed and trailer were facing the wrong direction in the beginning. Even though the final position in the direction it would be facing was just a few degrees off of the direction it was facing to start with, I would have to do a complete 180 degree switch in order to get the truck and trailer going on the right direction to get into place. The house, wood pile, cedar tree and hot tub (another project) were in the place I needed to be in order to make this a simple job. I had to pull forward and back up several times in order to get the trailer going in the right direction down the slope.

It took a seven point turn to get everything on the right path. As the trailer got towards the bottom of the upper slope, it went through the ruts which I made for my telephone pole retaining wall. It took several iterations of going through these ruts until we felt we had the right angle, during one of the attempts I pulled forward a tiny bit too fast and one side of the shed lifted off the trailer then fell back in place. At this point I wasn't worried much about the safety of the shed, I had always calculated in the complete destruction of the shed ad a possibility in my plan. I accepted before starting any work on this project that something might go wrong and my shed may end up in splintered pieces or wrong side up in the middle of my yard. At that point, I wouldn't have been at any real loss since I would just use my posts for a new shed's foundation and I would have needed to take my old shed out eventually anyway, so I really had nothing to lose by trying.

The biggest difficulty in backing up in this case was that I was completely unable to see the trailer itself from the cab of the truck. I was also completely unable to see around the monstrous shed which was on top of the trailer, so I was relying entirely upon direction from my dad to guide me into place. Since there was a juvenile western red cedar (pictured later) directly in front of the shed's new home, I was going to have to back in at an angle towards the posts and then turn at just the right moment. It would not be the most complex backing maneuver I've ever accomplished, but it was certainly the hardest because I had no visibility around or beyond the shed.

It took two or three tries to get into the space before we got the right angle so that the trailer even went into the space between the four posts. Once we got in, my dad had me pull forward and back to wiggle all the way back into the space. He said "I think that's it" so I stepped out and began to investigate, the two front posts looked good, but when I got around to the back, I saw that the far post in the rear was not under the shed at all. Just six inches from victory over a minor angle adjustment. I didn't have any more room to adjust, I would have to pull out and try again. We talked it over for a minute and then pulled out carefully to adjust and try again.

This time we tried a different approach, I pulled up as close to the cedar tree as I could and tried to slide into the space, but being that the angle was shallow, we didn't have enough control or room to get it into the space. I got out and told my dad that we'd have to back at a steeper angle so that I had room to turn and maneuver, the way we were trying to come in would require me to get the truck into a place right where the cedar tree was, and there length of the truck and trailer combined was too much for that space.

We pulled out and tried again, Brandy came out to see how things were going and let me know what time it was, my dad was on one side and Brandy on the other. My dad guided me back and Brandy, standing next to the passenger window began to say "You'll have to stop because at this angle you are going to hit the post" while at the same time my dad was saying "Keep coming everything is clear." It was too late, I felt a soft lurch as the trailer wheel hit the post.

Brandy was angry that I didn't stop, I explained that she couldn't hear my dad talking at the same time on the other side, so I didn't register what she said. I also encouraged her to simply yell "Stop!" in situations like that to get my attention, then explain the problem to me after I stopped. She was mad, but we laughed about it on the way to dinner later.

I pulled forward and got out, the post had been pushed over so it was leaning, but the damage was minimal. We were able to shove the post back into a perfect upright position and repack the still-wet concrete. If the concrete around the posts was fully set by this time, it probably wouldn't have moved with how slow I was going, but the combined weight of the truck and trailer made a barely noticeable nudge.

After it was reset I pulled forward again, we increased the steepness of the angle again, moving another telephone pole out of the way to make room. Everything went well, we were fairly good at getting into the space at this point. My dad told me to turn to start to slide into the space and I did so, I could see the wheel of the trailer clear the post through my mirror this time. As we continued back I heard a loud cracking of wood, I stopped and my dad checked, it turned out to be an old fence-post and nothing important, so we proceeded.

A few inches more and I felt a little resistance, I stopped and asked if I was against one of the posts, my dad checked and said we were clear, so I continued, but he couldn't see that the drivers side trailer tire was against the rear post, I pushed further and the resistance grew, and my dad eventually said to stop. I pulled forward and walked back to assess the damage. The post was pushed over, similar to the first one we backed over.

I pushed it upright again and packed in the concrete with my boots, I pulled the truck all the way out and parked. I went back to investigate again, and decided that it was simply over. I got back in the truck, thoughts of backing the trailer down the ravine and letting the shed fall to it's doom ran through my mind, but instead I just straightened out, pulled the shed onto the level ground and turned the truck off. I thanked my dad for all the help and explained that I would have to figure everything out the next morning. After 13 hours of hard labor I knew I was in no condition to be making decisions, but my options seemed clear. The next morning I would need to take the shed off of the trailer so that it could be dismantled and it's parts could be used for a new shed.

After my dad left, I took a quick shower and changed so that we could go out to pick up my grandma, we were taking her to dinner to celebrate her birthday from a few days before. Brandy drove for this event because I was already so sore. The dinner was pleasant and the food was good, we went home and had a quiet evening with a relatively early bedtime for a Saturday night.

The whole time my mind was still racing with the possibilities of what I was going to do next, I felt as though the task would not be completed due to our lack of time and I was dreading the weeks ahead where I would need to go through long weekends of dismantling the shed. The stress of incomplete projects really eats away at me, so between that and my sore body, I slept sufficiently, but kept waking up throughout the night.

When morning finally came I felt a lot more clear-minded, no longer depressed, I had regained the majority of my normal confident and nonchalant stature. Since our only plans for the day included going to Hurricane Ridge to show Coughlin snow for the first time, I realized that I had plenty of time to get the shed off of the trailer and subsequently put the trailer back together. I made myself breakfast and then collected my thoughts while drinking my coffee. I went out with coffee in hand and started to asses the situation. The first stop was the posts, I found that each of them, even the two which were displaced the night before, were all completely secure now, the concrete had completely dried and all of the posts were now securely set. I walked along the paths we tried to take and verified in my mind that the angles of approach all seemed attainable. I walked around the yard finding a location to drop the shed so that I could dismantle it later.

I got in the truck and backed the shed into the location where I was considering unloading it, but I couldn't bring myself to accept defeat yet, I decided that I should try to get it into place again, and if I failed, I would dismantle the shed closer to the new foundation.

I moved the truck forward all the way across the yard, then began to back up again. I took an approach which brought the shed very close to the cedar tree, I went very slowly and got out every few inches to make sure I was on the right course. After getting the shed past the tree (breaking a couple of branches as I brushed by) I got to a point where the truck wasn't going to be able to continue without hitting the tree or one of the posts. I turned off the truck for a few minutes while I thought this out. I could either cut the tree down so I could back straight into the space, or I could take on a shallower angle, which would require me to run over my apple tree seedling (which I guessed it would escape from unharmed). After a few minutes of deliberation, I decided to go over the seedling, I really like my cedar tree and I didn't have enough time to play around with cutting it down and clearing it away.

I pulled the truck and trailer forward, more or less at a 90 degree angle to the posts, I got the shed as close to the post side of the cedar tree as I pulled out, and I made sure that my apple tree seedling went between the tires and not under them. As before, I got out every few inches to make sure I was still on track. When I got to the pivot point I turned hard to the left, pushing the sharply to the right. Continuing on at the pace of one or two inches at a time, with minor adjustments to the right or left as needed, I moved the trailer slowly into position. When I finally stopped, the angle of the trailer was slightly off, but it would be more than good enough to drop in place.

Here is my truck right after I finished backing the shed into it's space. If I could have picked up a shot from the sky it would show the extreme angle difference between the direction of the shed and trailer and the truck.


This picture shows the trailer with shed on top, parked neatly between the two posts.


It is no optical illusion, I am definitely about three inches closer to the post on the left than the post on the right.

Now that it was in place, I moved my jack and my blocks over and raised the shed up off the trailer. I only gave myself about six inches of clearance since I wouldn't need much space to pull the trailer out.

Here is the shed just before removing the trailer.


Since the ground was un-level, there were about 12 inches of clearance in the back.

Here is a picture of my jack and the very sophisticated jack assistance tools.


I used various pieces of scrap lumber to spread the weight while I was raising and lowering the shed. In the end I didn't cause any damage to the shed's structure or cosmetic damage (not that you could tell if I had).

Here is the shed standing on the blocks after I pulled the trailer away. You can see the tiny, short posts way down below.


I laid my 4x6 beams across the posts as squarely as possible, I used some 4d nails to secure the beams to the posts and lowered the shed down. It came down quickly, it only took one turn to get the shed onto it's new foundation.

Here is the picture of the shed after completion, you can see that it is just a little off center and slightly angled, but still securely in place.


This picture shows one of the steel fence posts that I put in place as a marker for where I wanted the shed corners to be. You can see the bottom of the other one just behind the shed close to the ground.


I was pretty happy that in the end I was only about 2 inches off from my intended mark, well within tolerable margins of error for this project. Just to the right of the end of the shed you can see my grapevine which I cut back entirely this year so that I can change it's direction to run along the side of the shed between the shed and the garden. I'm hoping that this directional change will help produce more grapes since the vine will get more sunlight.

We took our trip to hurricane ridge and my mood had changed entirely. I was completely relieved to have another finished project, especially one which I felt was doomed just a few hours before.

In all, if anyone is thinking of moving a large shed this way, I would tell them that it's a completely insane idea, but that I have proof that the concept can work.