As we neared Halloween we had everything ready to go but needed to get the trusts up and in place. So we bought a hoist that we could use to lift the then into place with ease, or so we thought.

On our first attempt we built a twenty food tee pee style support to attach and lift the trust with the hoist. We attached straps to the wood, and connected it to the hoist and it started to rise, just as we thought. We managed to get it a four feet off the ground when we realized it was going to be too long to clear the posts. We decided I could hold the trust in place as Cas slid the ropes closer to the front, so it could clear.

As we got ready, and Cas released the first rope, the trust fell, knocking Cas down and hitting his head on the rock steps. We were both ok, but he had a softball size bruise on his leg, a few cuts and a bump on his head. We were not going to do that again, so we figured out a new game plan over the next few days while we healed.

One day, while having lunch at work, we came up with an idea to rent something that we could lift up the three trusts. We landed on a material lift. We found one we could rent for the day at $80, right down the street. We rented it for our next day off together, election day. We arrived right at opening so we could get a full day’s use out of the lift, and it made it work for us.

Our challenge turned out to be that when we built them, the last built was meant to go on the outside, and we needed the first built to be next to the house. We used the lift to rise them and to slide slide rollers underneath them and move them off the deck about ninety percent, and it worked.

We managed to get all three lifted, in place, and secured before returning the lift at 5:00 p.m. Back at home, we lifted a few of the 20-foot boards onto the trusts to allow for greater strength, as we will need to do a little each night after work to complete the build.