IMHO, today was truly a momentous day in the life of the Swamp Chronicles. We hauled in the last of the crushed stone into the baggage room basement. Of course, it helps if one has a really good hard-working crew that can sling those buckets onto the lorry, with two heaves of the wagon have the loads hurtling down the tracks from the North End back down to the station, and then throw those buckets down the stairs without losing a single stone. Okay, so I exaggerate a bit - but just a bit!
We really moved a lot of crushed stone into the baggage room basement - 6 loads of 12 buckets each weighing 50-60 lbs each. I'll let you do the math.
At first there was only Brad, Cliff and I as Corey had done a number on his leg when he decided to run into a sidewalk on his bike the day before (Corey was on light duty today doing some clean-up in the basements). It was a question, however, as to who was going to fill those buckets first - Cliff or Brad. Then along came George M a bit later and finally Bill S for the last two loads. All the help was gratefully appreciated as many willing hands make short work of the task at hand.
From the load on the platform that you see in the photo above, we moved the loaded buckets to the entrance to the basement. I let Brad and Cliff haul those buckets down the stairs as they're full of more P&V than I am. Or rather, at my stage in life, I'd be crazy to bring those loaded buckets down those stairs. At 50-60 lbs each, they aren't exactly light.
Once the buckets were on the landing, Cliff would bring the buckets halfway down the stairs and Brad would take them down the rest of the way, throwing them through the opening into the waiting room basement. (Cliff doesn't like to have his photo taken, even though we had to twist his arm.)
George M and I (and later on Bill after he arrived) would truck them across the waiting room basement and throw them through the opening into the baggage room basement. Once Brad and Cliff had all 12 buckets into the furnace room basement and through the opening into the waiting room basement, we'd all shift over one room so that George and I would be in the baggage room basement and Bill S, Brad, and Cliff would be carting buckets across the waiting room basement.
(That is a full pail of crushed stone that George M is trucking across the waiting room basement!) (Okay, so we didn't exactly throw those loaded pails through the opening into the baggage room basement!)
From there, I'd dump the buckets into the trench and return the empty ones.
Once the 12 buckets were emptied, back down to the North End we'd go for another load. Around about the last load, John W came by to inspect the work (after getting permission to enter the "job site" from the Job Superintendent!) so we let him carry a couple of "symbolic" buckets for us. We did this 6 times today. My first estimate was that it would take 3 loads but it took 5. And when I looked at the level of the crushed stone in the trenches, I decided that we needed another load to top up the stone and finish the job properly. This is what it now looks like with the crushed stone in the trenches.
We started moving crushed stone at 09:15 and we had the last load in and everything put away by 11:45. By this time it was time to go for lunch (Brad and Corey had to get to classes, Bill had an appointment in Ottawa and I had personal errands to do) so we all trekked on over to McDonald's for lunch and some good conversation. But before we did, we had John W take the proverbial "group photo". Here's today's crew who contributed to today's effort. Thanks, gang, for a job well done!
Next week, we start to move that excess dirt out of the baggage room basement. Now that's going to be a task-and-a-half! But we'll get there, fer shur, fer shur.
See y'all same time, same place next week.
PS - 6 loads x 12 bucket x 50-60 lbs equals 3,600-4,320 lbs or roughly 2 tons of crushed stone. Now that's a lot of crushed stone, eh!?
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