Chipper Shredder . Fargo, anyone?

Monday, Jun 15-16

Metals. Glass. Drywall. Insulation. Composites. All sorted and hauled away.

Now the big job of removing broken wood piled up in heaps higher than a cottage and reeking vaguely of a seventy-year mildew accumulation.

The same backhoe crew that dismembered the cottages and so meticulously stacked the pieces in monstrous tidy piles, just as meticulously feed the ceaselessly grinding maw of a giant shredder. Clumps of broken boards and timbers slowly rotate, round and round, gradually vanishing into the metal digestive tract. A narrow conveyor reels wood chips up from the bottom and feeds them to a passive jumbo dump truck.

The air fills with aromatic dust, snaps with the sound of breaking timber, and shudders with a rumbling of gears and gnashing of metal jaws.

The cat has gone somewhere else.

With this final drastic and painful preparation complete, the wood remains are set for their trip to a crematorium and whatever recycled new life awaits them.

It was a two day operation. Now only the concrete ruins of stairs and foundations remain.