Putting the Red in Redneck...
We were supposed to do straw today. By 'do straw' I mean make it into bales, transport the bales from the field to the barn, and then deposit them inside the barn.
I know that it doesn't sound like such a difficult task, but really, it is a monumental task when it is time to put straw (or hay, or anything that exists on the planet Earth) into a mow. Everything had seized from the last time we tried to use it. I shattered the motor on the elevator before the fifteenth bale got in, the baler refused to make bales after the first load. The wagons would not extend so that the smaller tractor could pull them, and I think we made four trips in total to the tractor dealership.
However, I did manage to get some posts painted, a load into the mow with the help of SuperNan, and a helluva lot of work done in the barn. Clearly I spent enough time outdoors to end up looking like this:
I also did a good amount of work indoors today, work that started out with a trip to the lumber mart. Now, clearly, women should not be permitted within the walls of this sacred building; however, those darn hippy liberal yuppies have gone and made it legal. So in I went.
This is what the barn looked like when SuperNan and I started out:
This is what it looked like when SuperNan, my dad, and I finished:
Now, I know I make it sound like I did ALL the work here, but mostly, I just supervised, throwing out suggestions here and there while wielding a can of Bug-Whacker. At one point my father yelled that if I didn't stop spraying the damn bees, he would collapse before the job got done and THEN who would make the power tools work?
It was a bit of an adventure to start out with. If you look very closely at the finished product, you might see that there is a tuft of my hair stuck in it. Before we realized that we were in over our heads (there's a pun here... wait for it) I was standing on a chair with a drill in one hand, an assortment of screws in the other, and an eight foot long piece of plywood on my head. SuperNan was holding up the other end.
Now, I would have loved to grab a picture of me with this lumber on my head, but, well, you know... THERE WAS AN EIGHT FOOT LONG PIECE OF PLYWOOD ON MY HEAD. The drill was giving me some lip over something or other. I think it had to do with making the screw go into the wood. In the end, I gave up trying to hold the plywood to the cieling with my head, put it down, and made my mother search out my father, who was still stewing because NONE of the equipment for straw-making would co-operate. In fact, I think he may still be stewing now.
Hell, he may be stewing from now until every last morsel of that straw has been peed on by our horses.
At any rate, I think it is by far the most productive day off from work I've had in weeks. Tomorrow I get to start painting the barn. I've wanted to beautify the place since long before I had a horse, but now that I do, I want even more for him to have a lovely home to live in.
As soon as I get the Clifford border off my bedroom walls, I think he and I will be about even
I know that it doesn't sound like such a difficult task, but really, it is a monumental task when it is time to put straw (or hay, or anything that exists on the planet Earth) into a mow. Everything had seized from the last time we tried to use it. I shattered the motor on the elevator before the fifteenth bale got in, the baler refused to make bales after the first load. The wagons would not extend so that the smaller tractor could pull them, and I think we made four trips in total to the tractor dealership.
However, I did manage to get some posts painted, a load into the mow with the help of SuperNan, and a helluva lot of work done in the barn. Clearly I spent enough time outdoors to end up looking like this:
I also did a good amount of work indoors today, work that started out with a trip to the lumber mart. Now, clearly, women should not be permitted within the walls of this sacred building; however, those darn hippy liberal yuppies have gone and made it legal. So in I went.
This is what the barn looked like when SuperNan and I started out:
This is what it looked like when SuperNan, my dad, and I finished:
Now, I know I make it sound like I did ALL the work here, but mostly, I just supervised, throwing out suggestions here and there while wielding a can of Bug-Whacker. At one point my father yelled that if I didn't stop spraying the damn bees, he would collapse before the job got done and THEN who would make the power tools work?
It was a bit of an adventure to start out with. If you look very closely at the finished product, you might see that there is a tuft of my hair stuck in it. Before we realized that we were in over our heads (there's a pun here... wait for it) I was standing on a chair with a drill in one hand, an assortment of screws in the other, and an eight foot long piece of plywood on my head. SuperNan was holding up the other end.
Now, I would have loved to grab a picture of me with this lumber on my head, but, well, you know... THERE WAS AN EIGHT FOOT LONG PIECE OF PLYWOOD ON MY HEAD. The drill was giving me some lip over something or other. I think it had to do with making the screw go into the wood. In the end, I gave up trying to hold the plywood to the cieling with my head, put it down, and made my mother search out my father, who was still stewing because NONE of the equipment for straw-making would co-operate. In fact, I think he may still be stewing now.
Hell, he may be stewing from now until every last morsel of that straw has been peed on by our horses.
At any rate, I think it is by far the most productive day off from work I've had in weeks. Tomorrow I get to start painting the barn. I've wanted to beautify the place since long before I had a horse, but now that I do, I want even more for him to have a lovely home to live in.
As soon as I get the Clifford border off my bedroom walls, I think he and I will be about even
posted by Amanda at 21:59
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