Removing an old lady from the backyard...

This was a project on the books for quite some time.  During Hurricane Ike, our nice big tree in the backyard fell on our water statue of "Lady with the Look", basically removing the head completely.  I believe the statue was original to the house in 1957.  So the headless statue has remained for about 2 years, providing us an unsolved mystery project.  What to do?  Jen battled with replacing it or turning it into something else.  The final resolve was to simply remove the statue, replace with grass and create a larger playing area for our son. 

"The Removal Project"

After borrowing a sledgehammer from our good friend Andre Lehr (he has everything), we were ready to go.  Our first hit with the hammer yielded literally nothing and we were faced with the truly daunting task of successful disassembly.  The second and third hits yielded little more.  Then we hit paydirt.  With the fourth mighty blow I not only blew out my back but put a big dent/crack in the base of the fountain.  Then we went to work...brick by brick, stone by stone and concrete piece by concrete piece. Poor Jennifer was doing the heavy lifting due to my injury.  I was still in the game but playing a limited role.  I kept hitting and dis-assembling and she kept filling boxes and hauling away.  She is some kind of trooper!

Jen thinks I look Sexy in my Safety Goggles!

And there goes the back!  Ouch!

Progress...

And a little more progress...

And done!

So what we have left now is a odd shaped mess of monkey grass, some dirt and a leftover eletrical conduit.  Phase 2 of the project is get Lehr over here with a hacksaw to remove the conduit.  I'm going to leave it to him to determine if that electrical line is hot or not...he'll figure it out!  Then we can cut out the monkey grass, drop some new sod and make it look like additional lawn covering.

So good-bye dear Lady!  We'll miss you.  But wait a minute, is something watching us?  Oh no!  We have kept what's left of her head and it now sits in a side bed ready to ogle the dog, cat, dinner party or whatever she deems worthy.  The good news is that at the time of this posting, my back seems to be feeling much better...thanks for asking!

She watches us...still...