A sad day, an exciting day...

The old...

The shed site is ready, the old house stands in the trees.

Progress on the shed, the  house visible through the wall.

Now the spot is empty...

 ...and all that's left of the old house is this beam...

...hewn by my grandfather and uncles.  This was the main timber that supported the house for over 90 years.  Now I will see if I can make good use of it in the new house.

Out with the old...

I made progress preparing the site for the new house, but the old one still needs to be gone.  Cousin Steve has been taking care of that--he started last weekend.

I had a couple, actually three, rocks sticking out of the ground that had a tendency to attack lawnmowers.  They seemed too large to remove by hand, so I asked Steve to use his skidsteer to make them go away.  This is the message I received after he started work on the house and the rocks:

 "I've been working on the project, with good progress... (T)he house is down, ... the basement is 70% filled.... I tore into those rocks today... the small one is approximatly 8x3x3 feet, the other one is substantially bigger. Picture a 7x7x7 hunk of granite shaped like a (die)...What do you want done with these rocks?"

I asked my family:

T:  The adult suggested:
     Carve the busts of our grandparents
     Offer it to an art student' "Free 340 cubic foot granite block--you haul".

N. the Soldier/Dental Something says:
     from the little one: carve a lawn-mower eating monster (eating a lawnmower)
     from the big one: carve our grandparents--life size

E. the Mathematician, offers these suggestions:
     Break them into 32 pieces to make a giant chess set
     Break them into 3200 pieces to make 100 regular-sized chess sets
     Build a dog-size stone cathedral
     Make furniture for guests you're not fond of to sit on
     Carve one into a millstone and grind your own flour
     Stick a sword in one and claim that whoever can pull the sword out can be the ruler of the farm

I need more ideas, which I will post as they come in.

(Of course, I could push them over the hill.)