Day one by the lake

Our first day on the lakeside project to remove steps etc. We did a bit of all sorts in the morning borrowing keys, trucks and generators. We managed to get the steps severed from their moorings and hoiked out to bask on the side of the reservoir in time for a late lunch. They looked to be much longer than I thought. They were advertised as 11 meters, but most of that turned out to be buried under the mud, so where we were able to hook on just above water level was only about a third of the way down. That meant we had to depend on a precarious temporary landing while I climbed up and detached the belts so that we could resling the load nearer the middle. The post luncheon session was basically a case of butchering the thing into three sections that would fit onto the truck. As you are aware stainless steel does not succumb to oxy torch treatment, so this was a case of lots of grinding with some fairly dicey moments snapping off the last bits in each case. I managed to make one mistake where the metal grabbed a disk and shattered it, but luckily the nasty spinning wreckage merely grazed my gloves. That saved the doctors some work. Safety glasses in place too. Unfortunately we had to wear helmets on this job so I couldn't get the ear protectors on, so a slight ringing lingers.