Mr. Fontenot and his crane, back in service after undergoing repairs late last year, arrived on schedule on a chilly morning, a few clouds dotting the blue sky. (It was the crane that had been out of service, not Mr. Fontenot himself.) For the third and final time, this being our third and final container, we were lucky with the weather. Rain would have complicated things a lot, in part because one generally doesn’t wish to be atop a steel box during a thunderstorm but also because an 80,000-pound piece of equipment is not something you pull out of the mud with a Toyota Corolla and some rope.
In fact it had rained a day or two before but the ground seemed to be only damp but not mushy. About that…
While the crane maneuvered into place it lost traction in the moist earth, and solving the problem required patience and ingenuity. One thing we tried was sliding a piece of scrap steel we’d cut out of one of the containers under a crane wheel, like you might do with a broom under the wheel of your Volkswagen. Our hope was the corrugation of the steel would allow for some grip.
It was an extremely fortunate thing that no one was standing in front of the crane, because as soon as Mr. Fontenot gunned his engine, hoping for movement, the sheet of steel shot forward with such velocity that it would have sliced a man’s legs off, and I’m not exaggerating.
Using lumber of various dimensions placed just so on the ground and with much up-and-down of the outriggers, the crane got where it needed to go, and eventually got out.
Rigging was easy, this being our third go-round, and then it was quick work to lift the crane and guide it onto its piers.
Earlier in the day, before the crane arrived, we had made the final cuts on the steel that had to be removed from Container #2, and we let those pieces fall to the ground. This is where openings between the dining room and kitchen, hall and bathroom, and office and bedroom would be. The cuts had been mostly made in the days leading up to the crane visit, with just a few corners left for the last minute.
FREE LABOR
As in so many past occasions on this project, we were lucky to have some help on Crane Day. When 9,000 pounds of steel is swinging in the air, a pair of hands on a rope at each corner makes a big difference in guiding it into place. Calvin’s brother George came from Texas YET again, for which we were so, so grateful. Our new helpers this time had traveled a much longer way to spend some time in Mississippi.
Johan Thurfjell is an accomplished Swedish visual artist whose work has appeared in group and solo shows in galleries and museums across Europe and North America. Nate Harold is an American bassist and electronic musician living in Stockholm; he has toured the world with the Grammy-winning band Fun. Johan and Nate had come to Pike County as artists-in-residence with Pike School of Art — Mississippi, an arts nonprofit founded by Calvin Phelps and me.
The project these guys came to collaborate on is pretty wild. They were developing a board game and accompanying soundtrack related to the Chatawa Monster, a Bigfoot-type creature of legend that roams the woods in our part of the state. They made the front page of the paper.
Before the crane arrived, the boys got in on the grinding action.
BECOMING A HOUSE
All three containers at last in place, it was time to cut, cut, cut and grind, grind, grind to open up the interior.
As with the first two containers, the subfloor was sheets of foam insulation topped by OSB.
COMING UP NEXT
In April we’ll mark where the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen windows will go. We’ll install the bedroom window and begin framing Container #3.
LOOKING AHEAD
Later in the year we’ll finish the framing and begin running electrical in Container #2.
