If you read my somewhat cryptic first entry, “Scavenge some long-coveted discarded wood,” in the previous post listing my errands on tap this weekend,  let me ‘splain. I’m a sucker for big pieces of wood. Don’t know why, but when I see a header beam or a railroad tie or something of that nature I immediately go into want mode.

Even if I have no use whatsoever for the material.

img_0624In this case, long-left alone on the corner of Jefferson and La Cienega where the Expo Line over-crossing is currently under construction, were some massive hunks of wood, at minimum 12″ x 12″ — and anywhere from four to six feet in length. They’ve been there for months, and every time I bike or drive by them I keep promising myself that one early morning I’m gonna bring the truck over and load up two or three — depending on if I could even lift them.

Well this morning was that day, and Susan and I got up early and were on our way before 6 a.m., with a plans to grab breakfast from the nearby McD’s after and go eat it atop the Baldwin Park Scenic Overlook (which I quit putting off visiting yesterday on my way in to work).

Fast forward past all that, I’m happy to report that I’m now the proud owner of two beams, one about six feet in length and one about five (we opted not to take a third one about four feet long because when I lifted it off the ground we found it was well colonized by a variety of spiders, none of them pleased to be disturbed).

Loading them up in the truck was the easy part. Getting them out of the truck, up the front stairs and into the backyard? That took a little work, as seen in the video below of me “rolling” the smaller of the two up through the northside garden and into the backyard:

Thankfully they didn’t roll back down once I got ‘em up there.