Scenes from a Workamper Wrecking Crew
TL;DR 🏚️💪 This year’s ranch workamping job included demolishing Cabin 8—with a mix of hand tools, teamwork, and some serious backhoe action! 🚜
✔️ Started delicately—removing walls, carpet, and shingles
✔️ Got rougher—saved rafters, beams, and every single log
✔️ Finished strong—flattened the area, but not without a bloody nose & a flat tire 🤕😂
The salvaged logs will be reused, and I can't wait to see the new build on this historic spot! 🏡 #Workamping #DemolitionFun #HeavyEquipment
As promised, here’s some more details and photos from one of the more exciting projects I took care of during my ranch workamping job this year…
Just Call Me The Demolition Man
It was two years ago that I first got excited about the opportunity to tear down old Cabin 8 at Vickers Ranch . That’s when we first started talking about the project. I have always enjoyed demolition work, it’s a great workout and stress reliever. This year my dream came true.
It took most of the summer, since the goal was to salvage all the old timbers. So we started delicately…
Then I got in a fight with a board, and ended up with a bloody nose. So we decided to bring out the heavy artillery.
Demolition is a lot more fun when you use the right tools for the right job. But we were still delicate.
We started by removing all the interior walls, pulling up the carpet, and getting rid of the paneling in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, we took off the roof—peeling up all the shingles, and salvaging all the boards. Yes, all the boards!
With the roof off, the real fun began.
After about a week of contemplating how to go about saving the rafters and beams, and considering using the excavator, I just went for it one morning with the backhoe.
With a little help from my friends—and lots of help from my little friend, and his friend—we gently took apart all the logs.
All those logs that were cut, carried, hewn and assembled by the Vickers brothers some time between the 40s and 60s (depending on which remaining Vickers you ask) now lay neatly stacked in a pile for the new lot owners to reuse.
For the record, I didn’t break a single log.
I can’t wait to see what replaces old Cabin 8, and how the old logs are used. But I’ll never forget the fun I had tearing it down with the old Ho Chi Minh. That’s Mano de Chango en Español for anyone following along de Mexico. Nor will I forget all the nails—so many nails—and the one flat tire I got on the backhoe while attempting to level the dirt and clear the area of all those nails on the last day of the job.
