Getting Rid of the Blob on Mill Street (or, If I Had a Hammer, I'd have Bill Swing It)

 The Blob Strikes Shelton Trails.

 

Well, it was a concrete blob at Gristmill Trail on Mill St.  Nothing that chased you down and ate you, but still an annoying eyesore.

Years ago somebody had dumped a large blob of concrete from a mixer on City park land at one of the open spaces on Mill Street.  Uglier than Sin right at the trailhead.  Getting rid of it has been on our Trails To Do List for ages and Mark wanted to knock it off this week since we didn't have a work party scheduled.  Why waste a perfectly nice Saturday morning, eh?

Mark had gone to Home Depot to rent a jackhammer and generator, but due to technical difficulties that did not work out.  So we went Old School;  picks, rock bars, and stone hammers.

Mark and Bob got the blob up and stuck some bricks and junk under it the help create a hinge.  Bill Dyer was keeping Teddy out of the shower zone and offering helpful support, or prepared to call 911 if needed.

We took turns with the 12 lb. stone hammer.  It worked best when we scored a line across the blob and then beat a chunk off along the score line.  There were actually a couple of concrete blobs to winnow down.

 

 

Bob Woods is showing that concrete who's the boss.  Nothing like a little applied physics.

 

Helpful Trail Safety Tip: Wear safety glasses (we were-3 pair), and keep your mouth closed when striking concrete because chips fly everywhere at high rates of speed (at least the way we work). Maybe next time bring the hard hats with the face shields too.

 

 

A couple of hours later we had reduced a big eyesore on City Open Space into a pretty respectable pile of concrete rubble (with an average density of about 150 lbs/cubic foot mind you).  Bob, Terry & Mark are standing over the spoils of victory.  We were all a pretty sweaty and disgusting mess by the end, but given the abnormally warm November we've been having it was a good mornings work.  A future task will be to haul the junk out to Mill St. and contact Shelton's Highways and Bridges Department so they can take the chunks away and recycle them.

 

The Gristmill Trail on Mill St. is a very pretty walk along the banks of the Far Mill River.  We encourage everyone to explore it.  Just leave the concrete at home.  We have another work party planned for the Paugussett Trail this coming Saturday if anyone wants to help out - no concrete demo is proposed.

BUT, if you'd like to see more of Bob Woods working to remove the concrete, here it is: