Get to work, taking down the deck, part one

The deck that the previous owner built had seen better days and it made sense to take it down. I tried bracing it a couple of winters back but gravity worked against me. I needed the pond frozen over so I could stand on the ice to work.

Having to spend several weekends installing water heaters instead of working on the pond, I finally had a chance on the weekend of January 14. I cut some of the bracing and one of the posts. I used spring cleats on my boots and I wore chaps using the chainsaw. I didn't feel like bleeding out on the ice.

The ice was thick enough as I got a good solid thump when the pole it. Rest assured that I used proper techniques to drop the pole and the straight cut was just to cut it close to the ice. I used an older chain in case I hit a spike in the pole that I couldn't see. 

I dragged the pole up the bank as far as I could and called it a good first day. The 15th gave me another chance to work and I took the lower decking off.

One side a time:

And cleaned up the debris:
 

I unscrewed the plywood sheets and then split the 2x6 decking in two. Before my knees gave out, I dragged everything up out of the pond for later.

It took me several days to recover but it turned out that I wasn't able to get back because of warm weather came once again to Iowa and the ice just wasn't safe enough for me to work for a couple of weekends until February 4th.

Part two will show why I was one day short.