We built this robot several years ago and placed him at the bottom of our driveway to welcome visitors by doffing his hat and tell people our address. We put a chain around his neck and attached him to one side of the pull-down gate so he wouldn’t topple. He weighs around 200 lbs., so it’ no easy thing to work with him.
As I told you yesterday, the latest gusty winds blew him down. We could only see his feet sticking up at the edge of the driveway. The land slopes really steeply there, so there isn’t much place to stand securely, put a ladder up, etc. I was really dreading trying to put him up today. The last time we had to do it (the only other time he has fallen) I was really afraid one or both of us would end up in real trouble.
Today we used a come-along
to help pull him up the hill and over onto the driveway again. From there, we were able to get on both sides of him and boost him up onto his pad again. I encouraged my husband to think of something more we could do to keep this from happening again. We’re getting a bit long-in-the-tooth around here, and if we can keep from having do to things like this, we might manage to stay in one piece longer. We talked about it, deciding to add another length of chain – this one running from his neck to the tree down closer to the road.
My husband re-welded the top of his hat on, and we put the arm with the hat in the back of the truck. We had already put his head in the truck because it’s too heavy to try to lift it over your head and fit it into the hole on top. We got some chain and some couplings at the hardware store. After lunch we loaded a ladder in the back, put Amber in the back seat, and went down to the bottom of the driveway. It was easy to attach the second length of chain. The robot can LEAN off the driveway to the right if we get a high enough gusty wind, but we thing that’s ALL he’ll do. We can easily pull him up from that. My husband wedged the ladder down the slope against a tree, and climbed up. I handed the heavy head to him and he was able to drop it into the neck hole, and then we did the same with the arm holding the hat.
He is now again welcoming visitors to the Lewises!
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