We’ve been planning on this cleanup for at least a month, but various situations intervened, and meanwhile, of course, the piles, in the verdant, greening midwest spring, kept piling up. Here are four of five piles, as of last Saturday morning, when we took the first pile to the dump, i.e., Hoosier Transfer Station. 

After two work parties, Saturday and today, we’re still only half done. BUT: the hardest pile are done, these being left bottom above, Saturday, and right top, today.

Saturday

It may look like some people are just standing around, but actually they are waiting in line. We decided we needed to organize that way in order not to run into each other.

Tuesday

Today’s load was epic. Mainly because it meant that we were finally rid of what remained from an ill-fated project that was done thirteen years ago, as detailed here:

The Cob Oven Saga

All the hurt feelings, especially those between a neighbor and myself, have been healed, though that little remnant of bygone times took until last summer!

The oven’s walls, made of cob (a cement like feature) and rebar, sat, in three large pieces, upright in the backyard here for awhile, then were cut into smaller pieces with a diamond blade saw last summer by a visitor from Jackson Hole.  There they sat, in a pile, in the back yard, until another man cut them up even smaller, so that the rest of us could haul them out to the front. 

I decided to document the final ridding of the cob oven walls extensively, little by little, mirroring the little by little progress over the last 13 years that led to this glorious day. Here goes, with Joseph and Marita doing the heavy lifting, into neighbor Dave’s truck, as usual.

Part way through, this sight, under the bottom layer. We stood around and pondered it for awhile, how nature is full of tiny, lacy mycelliac (is that a word?) structures . . .

Nearing the finale . . .

The finale!

At the transfer station they learned the total weight of the cob oven walls: 1,120 pounds. Actually that feels low, not even as big as a horse.

In any case, we are now free.

Will reserve this week’s Saturday work party for the final haul, probably two trips, of organic matter to Good Earth.