We started to rebuild our handicap ramp entrance to the Inn this week thanks to the go-to team of Inn regulars, Doug Payne, Tony Civitella and Bobby Fogg. Underneath the boards of the old ramp was a serious piece of granite, an old threshold that we knew was there, but that when revealed in all its glory we felt needed to be rescued from it’s buried position. Thanks to Phil Matthewson and his company we had a backhoe on the scene within an hour. As long as it was there, we went ahead and exhumed another slab of granite, also mostly buried, in front of another old, out-of-service Inn entrance nearby. The second one, which measured seven feet long and +18 inches thick in spots, tipped the backhoe off its front wheels when lifting/dragging/lugging it out.
First time either of them have seen daylight in maybe 150 – 200 years??
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- Too fine a granite specimen to let remain buried.
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- Easing the first, smaller stone out from underneath the front porch of the Inn.
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- Accidental archeologist, Doug Payne, with some rock.
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- Lifting the second granite threshold. Note the boot scraper. There were two, one at the other end. We tried to use that one to pull the step out initially, but it sheared off quickly.
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- Setting down the large stone on the cribbing where it will wait while we decide what to do with it over the winter.
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- The front tires of the backhoe lift off the ground as it tries to pick-up the larger piece of granite.
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- Tweedledee and Tweedledum