We picked Tuesday as THE prime day to move heavy stones and stone sculptures - which happened to be Halloween. Dereck Sheroan of JBB, Inc. from Hardinsburg brought their 23 ton crane truck out to the studio early on the frosty morning.
I've spent most of October trying to finish the "Magic Carpet Bench". I love the variegated color in this 6 foot long functional sculpture.
This is the other side view.
I wanted to move the "Magic Carpet Bench" and this "Daydreamer" out into the sculpture garden with the crane, but the ground was still too soft - we would have made deep ruts.
We spent the first 6-1/2 hours of the day moving sculptures and stone that belonged to Meg. After a late lunch, we switched to moving my stuff. The first piece to move was the 4,000 lb. preform for a sculpture titled "Hope". Here's a short video that Meg took showing this piece being loaded up
https://youtu.be/TF9n0vYY4NU
...and another one showing it being stood up.
https://youtu.be/qzxp2vOx_M8
This is half of the 10,000 lb. scrap piece that was cut from the side of the buffalo sculpture block. The "Hope" preform was the other half. Both were moved close to the studio where they could be reached by air and electric tools.
Behind that piece is a 4,000 lb. block that will be a functional sculpture called "Throne of Measure". Here's a short video that Meg took of it being stood upright.
https://youtu.be/hgEwP2kIi7Q
Then, we stood a 10,000 lb. block of stone upright, loaded it onto the crane truck...
...then set it onto the rail cart. It will become a "Dragon Bench".
The last thing left to do was move an 8' tall stone "Virgin" out of the studio. We had to take the block and hook off the cable and attach a spreader bar to the nose end of the crane. It required multiple creative rigging approaches to finally get her moved out safely. File this under "Nothing is easy". Here's a short video by Meg of that
https://youtu.be/4D_SF28tOCc
and another
https://youtu.be/MR-P5lWgbhk
Meg took this cool pic of the moon beside the Virgin's halo. This was near the end of a very long day.
The deer still don't know what to think about the new sculpture. On the left is "Skidoo" with this year's fawn "Baby Boo" and her yearling "Goldie Fawn".
Ending this post on a Halloween note: this picture that Meg took - something she saw peering back at her from one of my sculptures...
...with temperatures expected to be mild-to-Armageddon.
