Another weekend of work…
Posted by Rich on 03 Aug 2009 at 07:50 am | Tagged as: Construction, Gardening, General
Well 75% of a weekend of work.
Saturday was a quick effort to finish reinforcing the back bit of roof at the downtown building. There was a cracked joist, but that pushed back up rather easy, and we sandwiched it with new wood. After that we were adding reinforcements and strengthening anything that we could. Even a simple pair of 1×4′s across the top of the old, lower ceiling kept it from flexing. That made for good catwalk access as well.
Sunday we finished nearly finished a small wall that we were adding in, but came up a few boards short. No biggie, it’s built and we can add the missing ones later. After that I took Mason down to the farm.
I mowed the edges, then got Mason to take his first lap on the tractor. He did a real good job following the trail I left out. As soon as I saw that he could handle it, I left his side and went to grab something out of the truck. He finished his lap, then turned it off. I don’t think he was too comfortable yet. There were too small section of Corn Crib that need siding. I knocked out the 4 slat boards, and headed up a ladder to remove any rouge nails. That’s when I found out that I must have been shaking a wasp’s nest. 5-6 of them started swarming me, and I got hit on the left ear. As I was swatting that one away, I saw another fly in front of me and glance off my swinging forearm. And he hit me! They must really do attack in the cartoon-ish curled up-butt first-dive bomb attack. I never got off a ladder faster.
I’ve never really been certain if I was allergic to bee stings or not, but wanted to play it safe. I quickly put everything away, and got in the truck. To be safe, I stopped at the Offenburgers house. There is nothing better than a good country neighbor. I bummed a pair of Benedryll to counteract the stings, and Carla made a baking soda paste to put on it. We talked for a few minutes and I headed out with several homemade jars of pickled beans and relish. I owe a sample of our relish recipe in return. Good friends and neighbors like this are awesome.
After I got home, and recounted the harrowing story to a laughing Reagan, the Benedryll really started to hit me. Really, if you take two of those, you are out. After starting to doze in a chair, Reagan shoo’ed me to bed around 3…3:30..4? I don’t even remember. I remember waking up a bit and wanting to roll over, but couldn’t even muster the will to do that! Finally around 7:30, and by thinking about having to go to the bathroom for at least the last 30 minutes, I finally got that far. I also managed to eat something too. Then start going unconscious in the chair again. Finally I was able to get up and productive in about another 30 minutes.
I did get back to the farm on Monday morning, just to make sure nothing was left out. I kept wondering where was that hammer I was carrying at the time. It only seemed to rain in town, so I did get to finish mowing most of the farm before having to head back to work.
The only fear I have is wasps. I hate ‘em. I used to paint houses during the Summer when I lived in Iowa. There is nothing worse than being on a ladder 30 feet in the air with wasps dive bombing you.
The farm went in-organic. I went armed with my can of Ace Hardware, super duty bee, wasp, flying nasty thing foaming killer. I sprayed down the hot spots yesterday and went back tonight. I pried out the last board, removed nails, pounded back the original siding, shaped up the eave, and fitted the new piece of plywood three times. Then finally when I went up with the nailgun, the nest let loose again. This time I jumped about 6-8 feet. In a single move I landed, dropped the nailgun, and grabbed my trusty can of ammo and went all Chuck Norris on the nest I missed last time. It was hidden inside the sliding door track.
The rest of the night was calm and uneventful.