Playing Carpenter

You may remember last fall, I got to play electrician and replace the yard light that AJ broke.

Well, tonight I got to play carpenter and fix the stall door that someone kicked and broke. No one is fessing up on who did it.

As I was feeding, I noticed a piece of wood in the end hay stall lying across a bale. It took a second to register that I did not have any wood on the ceiling that could drop down.

After I threw hay, I went over to investigate a bit further. Dang horses are hard on stuff. One of them kicked a board and snapped it in half. Did not see any hair or blood around and did a quick scan of hind legs to make sure no one had any injuries. No one did, lucky for them!

Headed back down to the house and called Hubby. Got him on first try – amazing. Asked him what time he was planning on coming home, he replied I’m leaving in 5 minutes. Good, we need to fix the barn when you get home. His reply, can it wait until tomorrow??? Um, NO, It’s the stall door and it has to be fixed tonight….silence on the other side. I tell him that the piece is about 4 ft tall and is a 2 x 6. His reply, we don’t have that size at home, guess you’ll need to go get one. Ok, I’ll head to Menards and get a board, maybe even ask them to cut it for me….play the ‘dumb girl’ act.

Throw the dogs in the truck, Stone was extremely excited to go Bye Bye and headed to Menard’s in Fremont.

Walked in to Menard’s with my broken board and said I need a new one just like this. :) The manager took a look at me and said ok, go back and we’ll page someone to help. He took off at a dead run the opposite way…I just chuckled. I’m thinking some high schooler will be there to assist. Nope, it’s some ole crotchety lady. I told her that I needed a new 2 x 6 board that is “this tall” showing her my broken one. :) I can just see her thinking, what a ditz, she should have been a blonde!! She whips out her tape measure and said ok, it’s 46 inches tall and a 2 x 6, is this treated or untreated…um, it’s weathered?? ha ha! It is untreated, can’t have treated stuff around AJ, he’ll eat it. I was pretty amazed that I guestimated it to be 48 inches and was only off by 2 inches.

The lady came back in about 10 minutes and said your board is at the front, I did the best I could to cut it, we normally don’t do that. I see a freaking handsaw in her hands, thinking, did she really just cut my board with a handsaw????!!!!

I get up to the checkout and the board is cut crooked. Great. I’m going to have to still saw this thing when I get home.

Call hubby on the way home and tell him that it’s crooked, but it’s in the back of my truck and we are headed home.

Found a square thingy to fix the crooked board and got it sawed off. Headed out to the barn to fix the damage. Got a screwdriver with a hex head thing to get the screws out. That was a bit icky with the bottom ones, dang horses like to stand in front of that stall out of the wind and you know what happens when they sunbathe right???

Had a bit of a time getting that last board put back in. Something wasn’t square and it wasn’t the new board that I put in! I had to stand on the inside, balancing myself on a hay bale and kick the piece in. That was real cute looking—NOT. Cora and AJ were wondering what I was doing and how come I wasn’t giving them any of that yummy hay that is in that stall. AJ even tried to come over and help, actually I think he wanted to steal hay instead of help.
Got that last piece in, the holes all lined up and got the screws put back in.

Made it back inside as the alarm was going off for supper to be pulled out of the oven.