10am, sunny, hot, and muggy. Good time to work hard right? Well this concrete was a lot deeper than the one in the back yard. I dug all around it trying to pull it out with the wrecking bar and I was getting really frusterated when I couldnt find the bottom of this thing. Finally after digging three feet down I found the bottom but it was so far down that I couldn't pull it with the wrecking bar. On top of that now the bigger problem was that it was a good 250-300+ pounds of concrete. How to get it out? I was tired and laying on the drive way ready to pass out. My neighbor saw me working on it and had to give her two cents. This would be the neighbor that her husband is always saying stupid things, I'll need a whole other blog for that. Well she had to tell me maybe I should just leave it there. Yeah right. Spend all that time to give up, not! I was pulling it out for a reason, obviously, and I am not French. I am not a defeatist. I don't like having a patch where grass won't grow. So I kept working on it until finally I moved enough dirt where, to my surprise, I could actually push on the concrete and tilt it in the hole.
So I did what any good redneck would do. I decided to use my head, and by use my head I mean use my truck. So I grabbed three of my ropes and tied it up to my bumper and my hitch. Now I should have made a ramp to pull it out easier so I wouldn't be pulling against a wall at a 90 degree angle but I was tired and just wanted to get that thing out. So I tied it up and gave it a try. The first attempt one of the ropes broke. Not because of the weight but because of the rough edges on the rock. I didn't even have to think after that, I knew what I had to do.
I went to the garage and got my old snow chains. I thought I would never use them again, I haven't used them in nearly five years. I hooked up both sets of chains to the concrete and then tied the rope to the chains and ripped that thing right out. Couldn't be any easier. I love my ten year old redneck truck. Well now I only have one more problem, a 300 pound chunk of concrete on my driveway. I was talking to a friend at church yesterday and told him I need to find someone with a sledge hammer. Normally I would just buy one. Always good to have more tools. But with the baby coming soon I don't have the 40 bucks. So my friend tells me he has one I can use. He bought it and it's never been used. Why? He said he saw it and decided maybe one day he can use it. I like his thinking. So by mid week this project will be 100% complete and cleaned up.
Next.....
I spend the rest of the weekend relaxing with only small chores in between. BBQ and swimming. My pool is so warm I spent three hours in it Saturday and I even went swimming last night.
This morning was an interesting one. We rushed out the house because there was a tornado warning in our area. After a hot weekend it was a cool morning, just 67 degrees. We get to work in Miami and it's 81 degrees with a real feel of 86 (muggy). Yeah, the rain hasn't hit here yet. We'll see what the damage is when I get home, hopefully the wind won't destroy anything. We are close to 300% of our normal rainfall for April though, this April has been like a normal June as far as the rain goes, we'll see what the summer has in store for us but I'm guessing this year will go in the record books for rain.
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