Raising Stonehenge at Whitsend

Well, closer to Avebury's woodhenge.  I'm not raising stone monoliths.  But if (as some archaeologists have pointed out) it is possible for a small number of people to raise 60 ton structures, then one can raise an awkward ten foot tall, eight foot long, four feet wide structure.  Using only simple machines, a pair of good gloves, and some fore-brain.

This is the intended location for the prep station shelter.  I had a makeshift one here for most of the summer, using parts of the structure framing assembled back in the spring and then set aside.  They were propped up and covered more or less with some plastic sheeting.

The plastic and temporary wood holding it in place was removed yesterday.  The structure was such that the only way a back could be built on it was if the frame was lying down, on its back.  So I rolled the entire structure forward until it was lying on its front, braced it in place and reinforced the framing (screws were used, another simple machine).

I then rolled it a second time so that it was on its back, and set to work installing the back paneling. Rolling was relatively easy, the structures edges were effective levers (physics again!), allowing me to lift an object considerably heavier than I.

That was the easy part, and where I picked up this morning.

First I slid whatever cylindrical shaped objects I could find under it and dragged it up to the edge of the gravel pad.  Then I placed it on a ramp of 2x4's (another simple machine) and lifted and moved it a couple of inches at a time until I was backed up to the barn wall.










Then the real lifting began.  With the new back (a pair of eight foot by four foot panels plus several six inch wide boards), the weight  of the structure was way too much for me to roll upright.  After some thinking, a chapter in a book about Stonehenge came to mind.  I went to the barn and retrieved a couple of wedges - Neolithic technology to the rescue.








Every move had to be carefully considered.  Each move was inches at a time.  There was much walking about the structure between moves, checking that nothing was slipping, cracking, etc.












At about this point, the wind started to pick up.

Larger wedges were retrieved.  Counter balancing was added to hold the structure.



Now upright, back onto the ramp an up to the gravel pad.

Now upright, back onto the ramp an up to the gravel pad.

Finally it was in place.  I built the roof on a square frame, used a ramp of 2X4's to slide the roof into place, and screwed it in.

After gloating over it while eating lunch, I went into the barn an began work on Nursery Three...

 A couple of photos from forthcoming posts.  Here's Beau, the 11 year old Labrador.  Julia and I house sat him while Dick and Bev (the farm landlords) were away this past fall.

 We bought our Halloween pumpkin from a farm down the road.  I augmented it with a couple of immature Delicata squash's.

They were a little too small for the candles.















But still looked good after dark.