We Came, We Sawzalled, We Conquered

I have to give my mother some credit. Because for Tara's last birthday, my mother gave her a Sawzall. You know, the type of hand-held reciprocating saw that cuts up just about anything you can put your mind to. Boards with nails in them, hunks of fiberglass, old panelling, irritating neighbors and/or their Jack Russell terrier who just won't shut up oh my God I hate that thing, and of course, our specialty around here, rusty hunks of rusty rust.

Between the shop and the shed there is the front end of an old Citroën DS; it's been sitting there for ages. I mean at least I think that's what it is; it's a little hard to tell what with being a rusty hunk of rusty rust and all. But no more. Because today Tara took her trusty Sawzall, and hacked the thing up a treat.

Tara loves her power tools. Her enthusiasm is a little frightening, at times, to be honest. But so long as I stand back, and pray, she seems to get the job done just fine.

And so today we shoved the pieces (all except the engine proper, which is still too big and will need more bits taken off it probably) into good old Larry the Volvo station waggon and hauled it away. It would have gone into the Bus, except on the way over the other back bearing decided to start going pop-pop-grind-grind-grind-crunch. I suppose that's not surprising as the two back bearings were original to the car and therefore the same age and in the same state of wear; of course Tara sounded a little less than enthusiastic about doing that job again.

Here's Larry:



Though the pieces were rather big, still they were on the light end; and though it looked full enough it turned out to be one of the lighter loads we've taken, only weighing in at 460 pounds. Still, it brings our total up to 34,540 pounds of iron removed (at least; again, before we brought it to the scrapyard, where they give us proper receipts, we'd been bringing it straight to the dump. And we did more than a few of those loads let me tell you), or 17.27 tons. And, this time marks our fortieth trip, which, honestly boggles even my brain, and I'm sorta used to it around here. And of course, ha ha need you even ask? THERE IS STILL MORE.

I didn't really get a proper before, but here's a shot of the same area from a little over a year ago. The thing Tara Sawzalled up is that dark hulk on the left. The other stuff has been going away a little here and a little there over the summer.



And here's today's 'after', from more or less the same viewpoint (note Tara's energy drink over there on the right, directly in line with the tree trunk):



It's getting there.