Cleaning up Concrete

Right after the dirt got delivered, we hit the Wawa for breakfast and my coffee. The call for the dirt delivery came much earlier than we anticipated, so getting out of the door fast was in order for us to get over to the Wee house with a certain amount of quickness. That speedy exit meant that I didn't get a chance to brew my needed morning coffee at home.

I love that about South Jersey, you're never far from a Wawa :)

After chowing down and caffeinating in the back yard we got down to the second order of business for the morning, cleaning up all our random concrete piles around the yard. Some from the removal of the old "garage" foundation, others from the construction of our new garage and then the odd ball piles of cement that where littered about the yard. We had a little less than two hours to get the trailer loaded and hustle our butts over to the recycle center. In theory 120 minutes sounds like a decent amount of time, but when it is reference to unearthing and moving concrete- it is not nearly enough time.

We worked out a pretty great method of attack of the topsoil and concrete pile. I took one side with a bevy of buckets and one of my crowbars for poking into the dirt and pulling out the big slabs. Pete hit up the other side with a metal rake and the tractor cart to help us move the larger bits and full buckets up to the front yard.

The pile afterward the massive pick through, see the post from yesterday for the before shot.

Being mindful of the clock and how much weight our poor SUV can handle towing, we had to call it quits on loading the concrete around 11 and hightail it outta there to get the recycle center before they close the gates for the day. We got there 5 minutes prior to last call and 35 minutes before closing time.

Once again, and certainly not for the last time, we found ourselves under the high tension wires unceremoniously chucking cement and cinder blocks into a giant pile of rubble. To avoid hitting the other with an errant throw to the pile we work on different sides of the trailer.

It took us 13 minutes to clear the trailer. Boom. Done.

The best part, all the disposal is freeeeeeeee and gets recycled. At the county dump we would have had to pay and everything would have ended up in the landfills. I love this place, I just wish they would take my wallpapered plaster walls.