The Bridge to Everywhere

Well, now, after a year and a half of talking about it, we finally have our bridge. On Thursday after class, David and I cut four twenty-foot white cedar poles planning to splice them into two very long poles for a single span of bridge over the wide part of the river, but the more we thought about it, we realized a middle support would be necessary, so we decided to use the island and build two spans. It was a brilliant idea.

Saturday morning before 9:00 we used the chainsaw to shape a relatively flat face on one side of each pole. Then we headed for Remus to have the sledge hammer remounted and to purchase the treated 2 x 12's and the "connectors" we would need. The next stage was the most difficult. One of the poles was heavier than the others and it was much too heavy to carry on our shoulders through the marsh, so we tied loops of rope around it and dragged it along the two hundred feet of our marsh "trail." That was difficult and not exactly conducive to optimism about our chances for a successful completion of the bridge, but when we found that we could carry the other three poles on our shoulders, we perked right back up. The second pole required about 5% of the energy the first one did. Then we went back up to the house and cut the 18 8-foot boards in half and hauled them down to the edge of the marsh with the tractor. About 45 minutes later we had all the tools and materials down by the river.

We worked the first two poles into place on top of the foundation logs we cut, drove four metal fence posts into the bank to hold them in place, and began to screw the boards onto the two faces of the cedar poles.

This sounds easier than it was, but in a little over eight hours we spanned our river out to the island--which we now have to name, as well as the bridge. We were smelly, tired, and hungry, and Alison was on her way home from a conference at Michigan State, but we decided to cook dinner before taking a shower so that we could eat, rejuvenate, and then show Alison our hand-crafted bridge. It was a proud moment as you can see in the photos above.

Today, Alison will read while David and I go down to build the second span and clear a path from that bank into the rest of the property, which is much more accessible now.

We'll be accepting donations for the privilege of having your name on a board soon.