Moving the Wood Stove.

So yesterday we moved the second wood stove because there was snow. Okay, let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up.

So you remember that we put in a power pole near the house site so that we could get temporary power for installing the septic system and for running our cement mixer. Now, since the second older mobile home I have is for storage it doesn't really need power, we decided to run the power drop to the furnace shed right behind it, because that is a permanent structure that will become a garden shed since our old garden shed collapsed during a snow storm because nature is a bitch like that.

Which was a great plan, except for the fact that we still had the wood stove in the shed. Which we were going to have to move to the porch of the mobile home to await the day we can install it in the garage.

Well, how we got the stove over there was to sled it on a children's plastic sled. It worked once didn't it? It should work again right?

Ha ha haaa.

So we emptied everything we could have out of the stove and the shed, and then Scott got behind it and shoved while I lifted up on the front and then we pushed and shoved and cursed and fought the damn thing partway out the door. Then we found a sled, and then filled the bottom with wood and boards so that the stove would not just crush the sides of the sled out, and then we fought the thing onto the sled.

Then the fun begin.

What we had failed to take into account was that we were going uphill. And do you know what else was uphill?

If you guessed the giant pile of dirt we used to to put the electric pole in the ground, you would be right!

Preemptively I had a moment of foresight and had shoveled snow in front of the loose mound of dirt to try to make a ramp. Let me tell you something right now, trying to wrestle a giant metal wood stove that is precariously balanced on a sled that is filled with wood over a pile of dirt on the ground uphill is like trying to shove a dead baby elephant up a parking garage ramp.

And really, it's just about as bizarre.

Once we hit that dirt pile the sled came to a dead stop. We tried pushing and lifting on the front of the sled. We tried lifting the stove and pushing it. We tried switching places. We tired accusing each other of doing it wrong.* Finally Scott used his brain power and we turned the stove ninety to the sled, so that it was hanging off each side like whoa, tied a stronger rope to the front of the sled and tried again.

Have you ever watched one of those movies or read one of those books about the old timey arctic expeditions where the great ships would get stuck in the ice and then have to wait for the summer to become free again? You know the part where the ice begins to break up and shift and then the cold water is visible until at last one day the ship gives a great shuddering heave and breaks free of the ice and the crew rejoices because they are at last free of it?

It was like that. Only with a wood stove.

Once we felt it moving we pushed and pulled like mad until at last we had heaved and pushed and fought the dame thing up that goddamned motherfucking hill until at last we were on the level and could glide up to the door where we stopped and panted like winded racehorses.

I am also fairly sure that the neighbors think we are really, really insane now.

So then it was a simple matter of shoving it through the doorway and into it's storage spot. I would like to say that we high fived for victory then, but at that point I realized that it hurt to breathe in and that it felt like someone was punching me repeatedly between the shoulder blades. So we crawled back to the house and drank tea.

Victory tea.

*This is a necessity in any project.