Climbing A Mountain To Do Our First Clean Up Project
A heat wave, climbing a steep mountain road, being exhausted and other challenges made this project almost impossible, but we got it done by persevering and working together.
THE DAWNING LIGHT # 97 Thursday May 4, 2023
STILL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES # 12
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Still Mountain Sunset”
Since our last issue of “Still Mountain Chronicles” section of “The Dawning Light”, in the next exciting chapter of life on Still Mountain, we finally launched our renewed 1981 Ford E 350 Dump Truck to do our first property cleanup project.
As I shared with you, we spent weeks lovingly upgrading it with a deep cleaning and rebuilding its cargo bay (“The Dawning Light” # 93). We did the last few days of work during an unexpected heat wave which was reaching its peak the morning we launched.
Our first project was in the mountains an hour north of Still Mountain.
An older couple, who are seeking a mountain retreat place for their “golden years”, had just closed escrow on their purchase of a 540-acre property, with a large house, barns, outbuildings and roads of a long-established homestead.
Two ladies, who remind me of Georgia O’Keefe’s lifestyle, originally bought this pristine piece of virgin wilderness 40 years ago, as their own private paradise.
They built a large rambling main house on a high bluff overlooking a mountain creek, and then gradually built everything else over time. They reportedly lived very happily there for the rest of their lives until they both passed away, and our clients found this amazing property for sale “by accident”.
The clients, who are an older couple from San Diego, called us after they got possession, and asked us to come up and give them an estimate for cleaning out the main house and yard of left behind things from the previous owners.
I went up to look over the project and meet the clients. When I go for an interview, I am also looking to see if we can have a good-hearted friendly relationship with the clients that is a win win for all of us.
When the husband met me, to show me what they wanted done, I knew instantly that we are kindred spirits. Buying any property is stressful, so I knew that our work of cleaning up would go a long way in relieving some of that strain.
He wanted to do the hard work of pulling all the trash, junk and free yard donations from all over the sprawling house himself and make piles for us outside, in front of the house, which I was happy about.
His work would make our part so much easier…and then we have certainty that we are removing everything he wants gone without mistakenly taking things he wanted to keep.
I could see that the quantity of trash and junk to be removed would easily fill our E 350 Dump Truck’s new cargo bay to the brim, take hours to load, and have hefty fees to dump it at our local “Transfer Station”.
Taking all that into account, plus the remoteness from town and the steep mountain road to even get there, I offered for us to do it all for him for a fair set price. The client agreed and said he’d let me know when his part was done and we could come back to do the project.
After a week of work, he texted that they had pulled and piled everything and were heading back to San Diego. He asked us to do the project as soon as we could, even though they wouldn’t be there, so that it would all be cleared out whenever they returned.
On their trip back home, he was driving their truck and his wife was driving their car, each going separately at their own pace.
He was a few miles ahead of her, when she decided to get off the freeway in Oakland to refuel.
Unfortunately, as she was working the gas pump, a bold robber snuck across the ground out of her sight, slid open the driver’s door and stole her purse off the seat and escaped.
She had had $2,000.00 in cash in her wallet, plus her driver’s license, bank cards and several credit cards.
She screamed and got hysterical when she discovered her purse was taken. She called her husband, who turned around and went back to help and console her.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Beginning the Clean up”
The police came quickly and after a search of the area, found her purse in a dumpster with everything, including her license, credit and bank cards still in it, except for the 20 crisp new $100 dollar bills.
This was such a great loss to them, that the husband called to say they couldn’t hire us unless we could do the project for a greatly reduced amount.
Ani and I discussed it, and probably would have said “No, its too little for too much work” if we had known how difficult it was actually going to be to complete…but we naively said “Yes, no problem!”
That turned out to be an unwise decision in retrospect.
One of the smart things we did do was deciding to take both the 1981 E 350 Dump Truck and our 1997 Ford F 250 Four by Four, which carried all the tools and equipment. We didn’t realize it then, but this truck’s high powered air conditioner would be a life saver.
We launched just after sun up and drove up together, with me driving the E 350 and Ani close behind in the Four by Four. I am the only one who can drive our Dump Truck, not because it is bigger, but because it has no AC or power steering, which requires both strength and skill to operate.
Our first obstacle is that their house is high up on the mountain side and can be reached only by a climbing a mile of very steep winding dirt road.
The E350 has a powerful engine, a low first gear and aggressive all terrain tires, but even with all this, the climb was so steep that the truck was sputtering and slipping and nearly died before we got to the top. I was afraid it wasn’t going to recover, but after giving it a rest, we were able to back both trucks the rest of the way up the steep driveway to the house.
It was already hot, but we thought we could get it all loaded and be gone before it became unbearable.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Two Out of the Five Piles”
When we looked over the project, we found there were five large separate piles in a 100-foot-wide arc, with everything, junk, trash and free yard items all jumbled up.
We were both still exhausted from the weeks of “pushing the envelope” to rebuild our Dump Truck.
But we got busy with a cheerful attitude, by sorting through the first tangled pile…putting trash into bags, junk carried over close to the Dump Truck and free yard items to one side.
Ani tackled the furthest away piles, while I went to work on the closest one.
I discovered that it was at least a thousand books from the original owner’s extensive library tossed into trash cans and a huge heap.
Because I am a lifelong writer and reader, I have an abiding love and respect for books, so I wanted to sort and box them up and take them all back to our free yard.
I started this process while Ani was pulling junk and bags to a loading zone.
Being in the direct sun was affecting us both, as the temperature quickly climbed into the 90’s.
We pushed on, as we started loading the truck, sorting and making steady progress.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Using A Cart To Pull Stuff From Far Piles”
An hour and a half into the work, we were both getting overheated. We climbed into the cab of the Four by Four, started it up and put the air conditioning on full blast to cool off our hot bodies.
We decided to take a cool down break every half hour, but still believed if we just kept pushing, we’d get it done.
But the heat kept building. We had to rush back into the air-conditioned cab of the Four by Four after just 20 minutes of work, with both of us reaching the edge of the red zone.
Our reality came into sharp focus when we realized that, with the sheer volume of stuff to be sorted and loaded it would take hours more to finish…and we were just too hot and exhausted and in too much danger to continue.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Ani Almost Done Clearing A Big Pile:”
We decided to go back to Still Mountain in our air-conditioned truck, rest and stay cool and hydrated for a few hours and come back that evening.
Those hours of “rest” were rough, as we had crossed the line in pushing too hard, so we got very little rest, but at least were safe out of the sun.
By the time we arrived back at their house for round two, it was in deep shade and rapidly cooling off.
Ani was the one who kept us on track and did most of the hard work of bringing all the stuff from outlying piles to the truck.
I was staggering around, stumbling and stupid from exhaustion and the earlier time in the heat.
I went back to work on the mountain of books, with breaks to keep loading the stuff Ani was bringing in from far piles.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Half Loaded”
The load kept growing. I functioned as “load master” because I have a talent for squeezing a lot of things onto the load so its tightly packed and structured to slide off when it's time to dump it.
Hours went by as it got cooler and darker and the truck was getting packed. Fortunately, a huge mercury yard light came on and lit up our work area as if it was day.
Ani saw me still struggling with sorting the books and suggested that I needed to take a different approach.
I realized that it would take many more hours to sort and box and load the remaining books and that, given the difficulties of the day and heat, that that was “too far and too much.”
I was already using up the last dregs of my energy and couldn’t risk collapsing.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “After Unloading the Free Yard Stuff”
As much as I hated to do it, I saw I had to bag and toss the rest of the books in with the trash. It was painful but a necessary trade off. So I did.
When we finally got everything cleaned up and loaded, and closed the rear gates of the Dump Truck it was 10 pm…
We were so grateful to have it done that we got a boost of energy—enough to sustain us as we slowly drove down off the mountain in the dark, down to the highway and back to Still Mountain where we both collapsed into bed.
The rigors and challenges of this project were intensified so much by the heat wave that it took days for us to recover.
It was another learning experience…but, we are glad that we are warriors who did accomplish the goal throughpersevering and working together.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Dumping The First Clean Up Project’s Load”
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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I think that event will lead to lots of good karma in the future.