Monday, August 23, 2010

Whoops! Where did my blind go? :-(

Well, I thought that my blind was heavy enough to sit on the top of the rock hill without being anchored down. I was wrong.

Here's a trail camera picture from the morning of August 7th, look in the top left corner for the blind.Here's a trail camera picture from that evening. (Note that the blind is now gone!)
Here's what I arrived to find this weekend when I went down to the land to check on things.
The roof is still in one piece and near the top of the hill, but it weighs at least 500lbs and I am trying to figure out how I'm going to get it picked up and set on the top of the blind after I rebuild it.
Here's a picture of what it looked like when it was still on top of the hill!

The blind has been up for a year and we've had some 50mph winds during that time and it has done fine. I've even been in it when it was blowing 30 - 40mph and it didn't even budge. Looking at the historical weather from the nearest weather reporting stations on August 7th the highest wind was a 24mph gust but that is about 30 miles away from my property. Not sure if it caught a microburst or what.

I'll be attempting to rebuild it and try to figure out how to put the roof back on without taking it apart. The top has shingles on it so that is what really adds to the weight and would be a pain to remove them.

I guess maybe I could assemble it all laying on it's side and then stand it up and then put legs under it. That's the best idea I've been able to come up with.

I also need to figure out a good way to anchor it. The rock is a mixture of sandstone and caliche type rock and I'm not sure how easy it would be to drill anchor holes in it. I haven't ever tried but I will bring some masonry bits down next time and see if it can be done. I have the guy wire and eyelets already purchased but I didn't ever get them installed, procrastination did not pay off for me this time.

The floor and 2 of the walls are pretty much intact and I should be able to repair the other 2 walls with a few replacement 2 x 4's. Everything is screwed together so I'm hoping I can have it repaired in 8 to 12 hours of hard labor. If anyone has any ideas on the roof I'm all ears!

Nathan

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