Moving Day.....

We wanted to move my "new" brooder house last week, since the snow had melted off. The only problem was that it was windy and the winchills were in the zero to 5° range. Not real fun to be out in, if you don't REALLY need to. After being gone and the wind, we finally decided to give it a try on Friday. It was SUPPOSED to be warmer and less windy. Since my neighbor was doing the move with his tractor, he was in charge.
The first thing we did was to cut down a somewhat straight tree to use as skids. It turned out that the one tree gave us two 25' long "poles" for the move. We then lifted the shed up about a 18" so we could slide the poles underneath with the tractor. It turned out to be a fairly easy task to get the skids underneath and lower the shed back down on top of them.

To hold the two logs apart, we cut a 2x6 to fit between them and another 2x8 across the top. The top 2x8 was held in place by 6" long spikes driven into the log. The 2x6 was nailed to the 2x8. We didn't worry about the back of the shed, we figured that they would take care of themselves. Now for the fun.....

We pulled and tugged, but the shed just did not want to move. Another problem we faced was the fact that the top two or three inches of the ground was mud, while underneath that was still frozen. The tractor just couldn't get traction. We DID manage to move the shed a little bit to the side and turn it so it would be easier to drag.
While we were pondering what to do, another neighbor drove by. We were actually thinking about calling him when we saw him come down the road. We jumped up and down and waved until he stopped to see what we wanted. We told him our delema and asked if he would come by with his big John Deere 4 wheel drive tractor and drag it for us. He said he'd give us a call when he could.
This morning at 10:45 I was in town at the gas station when I got a phone call. He was there and ready to roll! I finsihed gassing up and high-tailed it home. When I came down the hill, I found that they had already hooked up and had gone about halfway to my house! There were a couple of small things I still needed to move, so I passed them and headed down my driveway. It was just a few minutes before the tractor made the turn behind me. So far, so good.

It was really pretty uneventfull untill he got to a small "berm" in my drive. He momentarily came to a halt in the slick mud. Being the master tractor operator he is, he deftly steered his way out of the mud and got a better "bite" on the road so he could continue up the hill.
It isn't in it final spot yet, but at least it is HERE. I will need to do a little digging and then turn it a bit, but I'm happy it is moved!