Fireplace Out and A Walk in the Forest

6.15.15 - Day 1

This is the fireplace that had to go! When the house was first built there was a window in this area of the living room. Years ago when the fireplace was installed the window was taken out and the living room became nearly as dark as a pocket.

After Allan and I worked for one day this is how far we got. He took them down one brick at a time and I cleaned them off.

We also both got "ouches" in our backs.

6.16.15 - Day 2

The remaining facade and the hearth out!

6.17.15 - Day 3

Allan began the outside work also at the pace of one brick at a time. He was concerned about safety and didn't want them flying about.

Bill worked on the staging with Allan.

6.18.15 - Day 4

Allan has been putting the bricks and mortar into buckets and Bill lowers them via a rope to Jeff and I. We unload the bricks to be salvaged and stacked them by the garage. Mortar and broken bricks were loaded into Jeff's truck and trailer or Bill's trailer. They took them home to use for clean fill.

It has been slow going but we are making steady progress

6.19.15 - Day 5

As you can see we progressed to the sledge hammer once we got lower. Susan stopped by and lent a whack!

We had all we could do to bend into the opening in the wall because our back "ouches" haven't gone away...

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our good friends Jeff, Bill and Susan the chimney is down and the former footing is filled.

There she is closed up for a few days of rain and until we get ready to put in the windows.
We have purchased the windows and a few other things necessary to put in the windows. We will wait for a string of a couple or three days of dry weather and then begin Phase II.

6.22.15 - Bangor City Forest

It cleared up today and we got a walk in. We were hopeful that the "Orono Bog Walk" was open after ongoing renovations all this spring. It was not open but we found out that it is now scheduled to open at the end of the month. We look forward to soon going for a stroll on this mile long boardwalk over the bog heath.

These are the flora and fauna that we spied today on our 2.4 mile walk through the City Forest.