The bridge was giving a distinct lurch when one crossed it, so I finally made a new one. I was surprised to find that it was more elaborate than I had recalled: the framework consisted of four Tamarack trunks levelled with deck boards. I was pleased to find that the Robertson screws backed out quite readily--I pried out only a few. The beams were quite rotten, so I hauled them up and tossed them aside. A number of the rocks that had served as its base had tumbled into the Crick, so I started by re-laying the foundation. On the west bank, there was a surprising amount of actual earth; usually I strike the hard bones of the land within an inch or two. I dug down a foot and then laid a solid course of rock. My new "beams" were pressure treated two-by-eights. I scavanged all the deck boards I could find, which meant taking several down from the woodshed, where they served as strapping. Even then, I had to reuse a few of the original boards, after running them through the planer to take off the weathering. When I was done, it looked fairly homogenous. The bridge, in one form or another, had been there for about twenty-five years. The next one will be someone else's problem!
