Meanwhile...

While all this scrubbing, filling and sanding was going on, we were also in the process of throwing things out, We filled a 30 yard construction dumpster before the first snow. Winter put a slow down on the tossing activities, but since the weather got better we have just about filled a 15 yard dumpster. One big help in keeping the dumpsters from filling too fast is that there are metal mongers out there. Fill an end of the dumpster one day and the next all the metal is gone, honestly I believe if they had the time and thought they could get away with it they would cut up the dumpster and take that too.

As far as items that I didn't want but would rather not toss out, it is just a simple matter of setting them at the street. They magically disappear. The fastest item to go was a Wurlitzer upright piano. Three of us carried it out to the edge of the road, we had not even made it back in the house when music started emanating behind us. A little old lady was playing it. "She said, "I want this". We told her it was her's. She then said, "I just live up the road a bit, and looked at us expectantly. We told her she had better find a truck then. She looked at us disappointedly, but after carrying that thing out of the house, down the steps and across the yard we were done. She stood there a little while longer and sauntered off. A little while later we were sitting on the steps with a few beers and she showed back up in a car with her daughter. They looked at it, they looked at it some more, the daughter looked at us and decided not to ask, they left. Before the day was over a pickup truck arrived, they loaded it up and took it away.

The other thing that went real fast was a doll house. This was not just any doll house, it was built for my Mother by my Grandfather. The house was one inch to a foot scale model of our house. The roof opened as did the back walls. All the cabinets, shelves and railings were in there. Every door and cabinet opened. He and my parents were the ones who built the real house so this was just a smaller chore than the real one. It really was a work of craftsmanship, the chimney, made out of wood like the rest of the house was scribed to look like brick, the house was 41 inches tall and it weighed a ton. My neighbor saw it and asked what I was going to do with it, I told him I had no clue but had no plans of keeping it. He and I carried it down from the attic and out the door to a pickup. It was delivered to a woman up the street with a Granddaughter. I was glad it just didn't go into the dumpster.

Here's a tidbit regarding my father, my Grandfather and the house. When they were building it they ran into a small dilemma, They were installing the ridge beam and they realized it was warped upwards and twisted to the right. My father said, "Now what are we going to do?"  my Grandfather looked at it and said, "Vee built a wrench" (German accent)  He then proceeded to attach a long 2x4 to the beam by nailing other pieces to it forming a vice that gripped the ridge beam, on the other end he built a box and filled it with rocks, at which point he stepped back, looked at it and said, "A wrench", then he walked away to work on something else. As the day progressed the weight of the rocks slowly bent the ridge beam down and twisted it into position. When it dropped into place they secured it.  Old school know how.