Two men and a sledgehammer

Today’s post brought to you by the letter D. For Destroy. And for Dave, who gave up his Saturday for the thrill of a tear-down at Loveless Lake.

We were praying for sunshine on Demolition Day, but Mother Nature delivered rain. We were hoping for extra horsepower from friends with big trucks, but they didn’t show. We assumed the rotten, cracked and crumbling cabin would fall pretty easily, but the old girl put up a good fight.

In the end she came down – most of her, anyway -- with Chris and Dave taking turns swinging the sledgehammer.

The guys decided the best approach would be to take down the cabin in sections, starting with the kitchen in front. Dave wanted to separate the kitchen from the crumbling concrete bock in back, so he shoveled off a strip of mossy shingles and cut through the roof with his chainsaw like a slice of cake.

It was a macho beginning.

Hooking a chain and "come-along" to the corner proved worthless. It only pulled out the rotten 2x4s. After a few tries, the come-along got fussy, the guys got frustrated, and it was time to start swinging.

One-by-one, Chris and Dave knocked out the sticks. Slowly, finally, gravity did its work. (Wouldn’t you know, the part Dave sawed stayed standing?)

But all the staging and strategizing -- and an unplanned run back to Menards for a heavy chain -- had taken longer than we'd expected. It was time to leave. Even though no one was satisfied with the half-finished job, we reluctantly hauled gear up the hill to the truck. 

The sun came out.

Chris and Dave stood before the main portion of the house, surveying its shift after the kitchen collapse. They began saying things like, “Hmmmm, seems like a few taps here and this thing could fall pretty easily.”

Next thing I knew, they were swinging again.

And again. And again. Until you began to wonder what on earth was holding the place up.

Finally, Dave hit the winning swing, and ran like hell as soon as he connected. Talk about adrenalin rush! The structure moaned, and glass crashed from windows and an old videogame we’d left inside.

That big ole tree growing against the front saved it from smashing completely to the ground, which somehow seemed a fitting end to our day.

So now, a whole new set of clean-up challenges begins. I devolved into a few minutes of panic after taking in the current scene, but soon remembered that somehow -- inch by inch -- we'd cleaned up the hell hole of a place on the inside. We could break it down the same way with the carnage of the tear down.

I envision a huge bonfire on the concrete floor of the former living room in the not-so-distant future.

And if a cabin ever gets built here, Dave and his family have first dibs.