Tearing Down the Deck

There are two things I can think of that I'll miss about living in the trailer: the thunder of the rain on the roof and the back porch-deck.

There was something about sitting beneath the cover of the deck, the shade deepened by the line of trees... When the AC unit wasn't on, it was the epitome of peace.

I had to tear it down last week.

It took me two solid days with the hammers and crow-bars and reciprocating saw.

 Above is one last look at the deck, railing down, ready to go.

 The end of day one. It took a while to get in the groove, but I managed to get half the decking up, and stacked the boards in the shop to use in the tree house / deer stand we are going to build once we are in the house.

Starting the second day was hard. Not only was I a little tired and sore from the day before, but I hit a patch of emotional uncertainty. I guess it's easy to let go of comfort if you know that something more comfortable is ready for you to move on to. But here I was tearing down the ONE THING I loved about the trailer with nothing comparable to replace it, and the golden carrot of moving into the house still seemed so far away. Not to mention that I was destroying the main path in and out of the trailer. Sure, we have another door we use sometimes, but when the afternoon sun hits, the front doorknob is blazing hot. You have to gather courage to use it. So all of a sudden, the doubt hit me: what if I can't make this door usable again? It felt like I was about to throw us into a deeper form of misery.

 Thankfully, I have a bit more tenacity and strength than I give myself credit for, and by the end of day 2, I had slapped together a small landing, and moved the stairs, giving us back use of the door and providing enough room for the trencher to come through when the stairs are moved out of the way.

 We had plans to do the trenching this weekend, but with a high possibility of rain in the forecast, Chris opted to work on the duct in the house, instead. I caught up on some laundry and other chores.