What Mara is not afraid of

Unbelievable. I know she's not afraid of vehicles, but today I put her to a pretty intense test.

They're tearing down an old house on our street, it's fascinating to watch them work. My man and I stood there with some neighbors yesterday, watching the excavator with claw (grapple?) attachment rip the building apart "bite by bite" and then carefully they sorted the material - wood here, concrete here, wires here, glass here. The claw operator was amazing - he could take this huge claw and pull one electrical wire from the rubble, and twice he removed full sized rugs from the home. If I had been a little boy watching, there would have been no doubt what I wantd to be when I grew up.

The neighbors watching with us told us the story of the house, and I was dying cuz I'd wanted to explore inside that house ever since we moved here, but I did not know if someone was living there, or, more likely, squatting there. Some of the windows were broken, and I never saw anyone, nor any car. Abandoned buildings sing siren songs to me.

They said there was a guy living in it last year, and they found his body in the house, 3 days dead. Geez,  now I really wish I'd gone in! A house that old has so many memories. Destroying an old thing always makes me sad, but it's totally understandable, that house was not maintained.

Anyway, today half of the house was still standing (less as I type this!). Since it's right across the street from the arena, I decided to let my horse observe the work.

A semi had just arrived, we watched his parking skills, it was one with a tarp cover that rolls back to let the excavator fill it with junk.

I let Mara graze on the side of the road there, less than 10 meters from the semi. We were on a hillside above them, so we had a really nice view. The top of the semi was about even with us.

When the guy rolled back the plastic roofing, it got her attention, but she put her head back in the grass.

Then the excavator claw scooped up a big load of concrete rubble and carefully lifted it over to the semi. The excavator was 20 meters from where we stood.

This is from the next day, when I went back without horse and with camera. In this photo they're putting wood into the red wood bin.

It was cool to see it pick up one stick from the pick-up-sticks pile. I wanna know where the helmets are on the footcrew.

I remember the excavator operator holding that first load of rubble--he glanced right at me, thinking, "No way is that idiot gonna stand that horse right there when I dump this load."

Go for it, I was ready. Mara was peering up at it and he let it open. You know that sound right, of a load of gravel being dumped into an empty steel shipping container? Mara didn't even flinch, I swear. Right as it fell, a car drove by and I realized how stupid it was for me to park her in that particular spot.

But she didn't budge, and she put her head down and took some more grass.

Three more loads we stood there, watching them fall as the cloud of 200 year old dust enveloped us. It got in my eyes and didn't feel good, and smelled awful. Good thing this house is older than asbestos.

OK I admit that was kind of risky simply cuz of the cars passing right behind us, but somehow my horse considers escavation/demolition equipment just more vehicles, nothing to worry about.

One false move and that guy is toast. One falling concrete block.... He must know that, and have a lot of trust in the claw operator. He looked up, saw me taking photos, and said, "Hey, you could come down and help us!" Right. Not without a helmet.

When I stood there with Mara, the semi/shipping container for concrete was on the gravel driveway between the excavator and us, and the excavator was parked close to it.

It looks like a bathroom, with our old grey tile even! Apparently someone had renovated sometime in the past 50 years. Note the door on the left.

Another bathroom, and now that I look carefully, I see fish on the tile. Two bathrooms, fancy!

Wonder what the horse will think of the empty spot where the house stood....


 UPDATE: She does not like it at all! *lol*