One off the big list

Remember those lists? Tasks, anxieties? Easy list. List of things to do that take some time and effort. Almost impossible list. Looking at that, maybe off the middle list. Two years in conception, four hours on execution. But that was only after three weeks of trying to find something to move a 300-gallon fuel tank. Turns out my neighbor had a giant engine hoist. We put that on my snowmachine trailer and after some adventures in backing the trailer into tight spaces and relearning some physics we managed to maneuver the tank into its new position. There's something about lifting. Years ago for a time I focused on pumps, just thinking how many pumps there are in our lives, almost all of which we take for granted. Today I got to thinking about lifting and sort of wished I had paid more attention to those diagrams I had in one class or another that showed the efficiencies of pulleys. Archimedes gets credit for saying "Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth." He was talking pulleys and leverage and the physics of lifting and pulling. I believe it can be done (the hard part is finding a place to stand). I have seen some amazing things lifted. There is an exhaust stack at the pipeline terminal in Valdez that stands at least 50 feet tall. There are flanges at intervals where it looks like pieces of it were bolted into place after each section was lifted. But it tuns out a fellow engineered it and was able to place in in one lift. I have a little device in my bush travel tool box that by weaving rope through it, I can lift more than 400 pounds. I have forgotten how I maneuvered some of the materials for the houses I built, but I do vaguely recall some difficult lifts and at times wishing I had a place to stand, or even more so, a sky hook. Look at skyscrapers, high water tanks, smoke stacks, bridges; everything was lifted into place. Some of those lifts were awesome. In a small way ours was today too. But, get this. After a couple of years thinking about it and then spending the past three or four weeks looking for something to make the lift, including just driving around the neighborhood looking for someone with yellow machinery parked in the yard, and finally finding it just about in my back yard, as we were taking my neighbor's engine hoist back, what passes us on the road and turns down my street? A guy driving a forklift. That just isn't fair. I waved to him enthusiastically and he waved back but I'm pretty sure he had no idea why I was waving. I stopped waving when I realized I didn't need the forklift any more.

THE PICTURES: The little one is before. The bigger one is how it looks now. That little lilac in the foreground is the huge bushy kind, so hoping in a couple of years the tank won't show at all. Also, with the weight off it, I bumped the old wood holding up the tank and it was so rotten it fell apart. It's a wonder it never gave way under the weight of a full tank.