Playing with tools!

Most of you know that I love the opportunity to play with tools. And if I can mix that with doing something new or helping someone, all the better. That is why I was eager to say "yes" to a family at church last weekend that needed help on their farm. John and Barbara run a small organic dairy farm and are in the process of (quickly) moving their cows from the farm they were leasing to their own land. Thankfully they already have the land and barn, but it's not ready to house 30 cows and all the milk equipment, so they called in help from friends and family. Being that I'm home all day I don't have to wait until weekends to go, so I went yesterday to do what I could to get the bulk tank room ready.

Their farm is about an hour from Wellsville, (yes, they drive that far each Sunday) and it took me a bit longer to get there because I wasn't paying enough attention to the map (thanks to listening to Christopher William's new album). As I travelled on the towns got smaller and eventually I was pulling off a dirt road up on the top of the mountain. The wind about blew me back into the car when I got out. Apparently it's always windy up there (hence the huge windmills in the fields next door) but it was an especially windy and muddy day. John had errands to run, so I was going to work with his son, Jonathan, and his grandson.

I couldn't get to work immediately because they were busy finishing up a load of hay bales to deliever down the road (making room in the barn for the cows). After that the fun began. My first task was to finish hanging the plastic over the insulated walls with a staple hammer. Easy, but hurts when you miss your mark and hit your finger instead! Next we moved on to hanging the 16 foot steel roofing sheets on the ceiling. You all know that I'm not very tall so I needed a platform to stand on to hold up the sheet with one of the guys. Then Jonathan put in a few of the screws. This was not hard for the first 30 seconds, but boy did I begin to feel the burn after the third screw went in. After it was secure, they handed me the drill to finish and went off to do some more work in the hay area. Sounded easy - just put screws into the designated areas on the steel sheet so we can hang the next one - he sure made it look easy. And I'm sure it was if I had been doing my weight exercises OR wasn't drilling over my head OR wasn't drilling through steel. Anyway... I eventually did get them all in. So, we were thinking about bringing in the next sheet when we heard a terrible noise outside. The wind had gotten under the top sheet of steel (that had a tractor tire on it) and was starting to blow it across the field. Under instinct I grabbed it and so did one of the guys. But just as quickly as we grabbed it, we released it before it sliced off our fingers in the wind. We watched it fly into and over the pickup truck and come to rest by the hay trailer. Wow - that was close. And so our attention was drawn to the rest of the stack. We each grabbed hay bales laying by the barn and tossed them onto the stack (well, I didn't toss mine, more like dragged it b/c it was soaked and HEAVY). Jonathan decided we wouldn't be bringing in any more sheets until the wind died down, but it didn't. Later they brought the damaged one in and we hung it in the back of the room where it would be less noticeable.

The grandson went home and Jonathan had more feed work to do so I ate lunch in the house (a wonderful stew made by Barbara) and then got back to work. Now I was hanging furring strips to the studs so that the sheeting could go on the walls. Wood is much easier to screw into and now I got to play with the compound miter saw! Fun! So, that's what I did for the afternoon. I was having a good time until about 4:15 when I was having trouble getting the screws in. I changed out my battery thinking that it was not getting enough power, but that wasn't it... I didn't have enough power in my arms anymore! I didn't get finished but I got pretty far along with it.

I said my goodbyes and began to drive home. That was a bit harder than coming up because of my arms aching, but I made it fine. By the time I got home, I was sore everywhere! Thankfully Tom had the soup I put out heated and ready for me to eat. I changed out of my muddy clothes and relaxed for the rest of the night after taking Motrin. I'm still feeling it today, but it kinda feels good. I really should get those weights back out! Or perhaps I would always feel this way just 'cause I'm getting older!