GARY & MARIE...OUR LIFE IN QUEBEC!: Moving the Cabin

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Moving the Cabin

In early June we hired Giles from Excavations Prévost in La Patrie to move the cabin with his large hydraulic excavator from where it had stood since we had hauled it up from Maine over ten years ago. (See this blog for October 2008). Giles is well known for his 'light touch' and we knew he was the only man in the area that could put it where we wanted it. The plans for our new garage had been drawn up, agreed on and contracted out to Chalets des Appalaches for site preparation starting in July and before any work could be done it was essential the shed and the cabin were moved. The shed was easy, as I had to just sling a chain around it and pull it back twenty feet with the truck and then with the UTV. Emptying it to make it lighter was the biggest headache. But the cabin, sitting on its own 4x4 skids and slowly sinking into the ground was the major problem. But we secured it with my chain at the base of the cabin, around the shovel and moved it a few feet at a time, nudging and coaxing it along, into the bend of the driveway and up the small slope beside the solar panels. Far enough away hopefully that the winter sun on the array is not blocked by the roof of the cabin. It took a few hours of sweating and patience but we finally had it in place and fairly level, the porch now facing east and the back up against the hill leading up to the house. Next job was to level it onto patio stones, lower flat the single solar panel on the roof, rake up the ground torn up by the excavators treads and plant some grass seed. Marie and I spent the next few weeks when we had time reorganizing the interior for what will be my art studio and relieved everything went as well as it could have. Now we are finally ready for Charles-Philippe and Mathieu to start work on the garage! gws