The (Christmas) Eve of Destruction

We have two small bins on the farm that Dad bought as government surplus back in the early 1960’s. I think he paid $300 each for them. We got about 40 years of good use out of them but they hold barely 2000 bushels each and we harvest that much corn in less than 2 hours now. So we’ve really outgrown them and they’ve just been rusting for the last 10 years or so.

We have an abundance of labor right now with my favorite nephew Joe home from Purdue for the holidays [1]. The weather’s stayed mild, that made it a good time to take these bins down.

We borrowed a demolition saw from our neighbor. We’re using it to cut the bin in half from top to bottom.

Tom’s in the loader and Joe’s driving the tractor. It’s the first time Joe’s driven that tractor, no better time to learn than with your brother in the bucket 10 feet off the ground with a running saw [2].

Everyone felt better making a low cut on the bin.

Owen, however, was still skeptical. As are Red and Blackie, our cows watching from the left.

I have the oxy-acetylene torches there, finishing the last couple of inches that the demolition saw can’t reach.

Blackie and Red have a date with destiny January 2nd. We try not to think about it too much.

That demolition saw is a miracle tool.

It only took a minute or two to slice the bin from top to bottom.

We [3] then tied a log chain to the top of the bin and to the tractor and started pulling.

Owen is wisely heading in the other direction.

And the bin very smoothly came down.

The bin looks huge lying flat! Now what to do?

We’ll [4] take the demolition saw and cut it into small enough pieces to load on our trailer [5] and haul into town to sell for scrap.

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1. or Christmas if you prefer. I don’t want to offend anyone by referring to Christmas as a holiday.

2. As always, safety first is our motto.

3. As always, when I say “we” I mean “not me.”

4. Not me.

5. The trailer’s 32 feet x 8 feet. So the pieces don’t have to be too small.