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THE NEW
BRIDGE ACROSS THE POND
at the Bold Colorful Life Estate
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The map of the estate... from just overhead.... |
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The new bridge across the pond is located to the far
right of this picture, across the freshwater pond, protected from the river
winds by a large glade of trees.
This is the home of a family of Maine painted turtles and bullfrogs,
year-round inhabitants...and spring peepers and tree frogs in their seasons. |
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The pond is spring-fed and rises and
falls with the seasons, and is shaped in two parts, one open water and one filled
with cattails. |
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It's an easy walk around the pond, but
I have always imagined a bridge across the narrow part and this is the story
of how it evolved. |
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First, I had to choose the tree for the base...and there
are SO many lovely trees here to choose from. But one tall oak was nearby,
and had an almost straight trunk for the 18 feet I wanted...and it was also
in the way of the wider trailers rounding the pond...so, I called my
neighbor/hired handyman again and he brought his long bar chainsaw and set
to work. |
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In minutes, the tree was down. |
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Next, I kneeled in the pond to guide Rick's cuts and
we got it cut into pretty good halves. Later, we thought it might have
worked better to cut down from above, but 18 feet of oak is slightly heavy
to move around! |
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The long bar really worked well! We moved the
two halves to the side and called it a day.... |
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The next day, I got to
work cutting up the rest of the tree, to get it out of the way. I tried out
my new battery pole saw and battery chainsaw and they did the trick...even
with oak! |
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The remainder of the
trunk will be given to the Woodchucks, a local team who gather and cut up
wood for those who can't afford it. Oak is a great wood for heat. I dragged
the wild branches to my woodpile. |
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And then the site was
ready for the next step. |
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A few days later, a friend of Rick's, who has
experience with large winches, came to help us drag the pieces across the
pond. After a few hilarious mis-steps, with Cyrus on the winch and Rick and
I on long metal bars, we got the pieces across and together...phew!!! And we
had several good chuckles along the way... |
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After much research and attempts at design, I decided
on 8 foot landscape timbers for the crosspieces and bought 40 of them, brought them
to the barn, sawed them in half with my trusty chop saw and then loaded them
up and drove them to the bridge site.
I also bought a good deal of pressure-treated
wood to shim the sides of the bridge into greater parity, as neither the
tree nor our cut was quite even. |
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I chose 16" spikes to hold the ends of the oak halves to the
underlying wood and that worked well. And with guidance from Home Depot
employees, 6" Headlok "no-drill" structural wood screws, as they were sure
they'd work with oak. That, however, turned out to be a mistake.
The screws were about an inch too long for their heads to hold, and they
began to strip when they were 5" into the wood. Very annoying, especially at
$2 per screw! I had to string 400 feet of electrical cord out to the pond,
use my heaviest electric drill to remove those I had started; drill 150
holes and ram them home with that drill. Not fun. |
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But as with all projects, the successful completion of
a step or the project is balm to all the annoyances along the way.
Here's the base of the bridge, waiting for me to
design a cool railing, and perhaps end ramps, after rental guests have
departed in the Fall. |
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Aerial Photos of the site HERE |
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