We took Bad Boy to pick up railroad ties and concrete block earlier in the week. We tried to do this early before the temp hit triple digits but the sun was still brutal. One of the kids (I'm guessing 18 tops) at the lumber yard got careless and nearly got crushed when a giant stack of about a dozen of them came tumbling down on top of him. He moved pretty fast but not before it almost pinned one of his legs underneath. These things are over 8 feet long and they weigh over 100 lbs a piece. Oh man, that had to hurt! But he got up, limped his way back over the the fallen pile and he and his comrade proceeded to load the truck anyway. Such a trooper!
Needless to say, we did not have that little trooper helping us when we got the load home and had to unload four of them along with 10 concrete blocks ourselves. The ties were a bit of a physical challenge but after that, those concrete blocks felt downright dainty.
Needless to say, we did not have that little trooper helping us when we got the load home and had to unload four of them along with 10 concrete blocks ourselves. The ties were a bit of a physical challenge but after that, those concrete blocks felt downright dainty.
Dragging them out of the truck and laying them flat on the ground is one thing, picking them up off the ground and setting them straight into a three foot post hole is another. But I devised a plan using these:
And two of these.
It worked like this - we placed the two round posts on the ground and lifted the railroad tie on top of the posts. Then we rolled them across the posts over to the edge of the hole. Then we used the concrete block to lift it part of the way up, since neither FM or myself were strong enough to do a "clean and jerk" lift of 100+ lbs over our head. Then we used a final burst of "girl power" to stand the tie straight up until it fell into the hole. It worked perfectly!
One up, three more to go! Not counting the ones we have to set for the pallet shed.
One up, three more to go! Not counting the ones we have to set for the pallet shed.