Down Comes the Stack

Play this 210 times, and that was my day yesterday.Notice I am wearing my bike helmet! I don't care for heights.

Spent a couple of hours pulling down the stack. I had hoped I'd only have to take down the softbrick shell, but that didn't work out; the upper courses of hardbrick were laid partially on the outer softbrick sleeve, so they had to go before I could work on the softbrick.

That was the bad news. The good news is that, looking down into the opening, I don't think the inner hardbrick sleeve has been affected. I had to remove 30 courses of hardbrick above but I think hte res can stay in place while I remove and then rebuild the outer sleeve.

It was much shorter work than I expected, once again proving the truism that begun is half done. Gravity was a great assistant in this venture: after warning Doug, and then the neighbor kids, to stay out of the kiln yard, I just tossed the bricks down from the roof. I could only throw down about 20 before I had to climb down and stack them out of the way, because while the soft ground did them no damage, striking another brick definitely would. I think I broke three bricks that way.

Hmmm...Seemed higher when I was up there!

Which is fine, because I decided that when I rebuild it, it will be a little bit shorter. It draws like a mad bastard (or it did, when it was standing!) and so I think a shorter stack will serve me better. I just can't decide how much shorter. One course? two?

But none of that is for today. Today is webwork, and then canoeing!