It Has Begun

The day has finally come. I have begun construction of the goat barn. My lumber was delivered 3 days ago, and has been sitting in my yard taunting me ever since. I started 2 days ago when I got off work a little early. I arrived home at about 1:30 pm and did not have to pick Ayden up for a few hours, so I thought I'd try out my new power hand saw. I'll admit that I'm more than a little afraid of that thing. As I was screwing the circular blade on, visions of decapitation and missing digits swam before my eyes. It even says in the instruction manual (yes, I read it. I'm not a complete idiot) to stand to either side of the blade as you're cutting...just in case. Wonderful.
Before I could even begin my quest of self-mutilation, I had to knock the existing boards off the goat barn, which was no easy task, especially when you're having to hammer out 4" nails from each one. I'll spare you the details. My plan was to cut 3 inches off the outside posts to create an incline so the water will run off the barn instead of puddling. Here is a picture of the goat barn "before" Kayte came at it with power tools.

The first time I fired that hand saw up (after pushing lots of buttons in an attempt to release the safety switch, that is) I almost peed myself. Know when you're near a construction site and you hear that unearthly screeching sound of some manly man wielding some sort of power tool? Yea. Thats what I had in my hands. Oh dear Lord. So I'm standing on a step stool because we don't own a ladder, and I turn on this electrified homicidal banshee, put it up against the line I'd drawn on the post, close my eyes, and push. I felt friction, but still no feelings of amputation or the like. After I shut it down and did a finger count, I noticed that Robert, my good ol' boy neighbor, had come out on his porch to see what on earth that crazy city girl is doing. Just what I needed, and audience. Anyway, the posts were so thick I had to cut from both sides, but other than that, the whole thing was rather uneventful. If you consider a face full of saw dust uneventful, that is. After the first post I ditched the step stool and just wielded that thing above my head. Every time I'd tuck my chin down to my chest, close my eyes, and hope for the best. Even with goggles on I could not convince my eyes to remain open, so I figured I might as well protect my face if I can't see what I'm doing anyway. I kept telling myself, well, at least I'm doing one better than standing to one side of the blade, I'm on another whole plan than it is. If it comes off it's gonna go whizzing right over my head like a Frisbee. After cutting all the posts on the right down to size, I hauled the boards for the roof one at a time across the yard and chucked them over the goat's fence. Did I mention that Sahara and Harmony were underfoot the whole time, Sahara maintaining a constant stream of invectives for the duration? (They've been confined in the goat pen since I discovered that they were escaping over to the pond by way of crawling under the gate. Will remedy that as soon as possible.) I had to knock down the privacy fencing along the side of the barn in order to get to the outside posts to shorten them. After all that nonsense, I then lifted those 8 foot boards, by myself, mind you, above my head and balanced them across the posts then hammered them into place. I cannot believe I got that much done in 2 short hours. This is a picture of what it looked like when I walked away. When I went to pick Ayden up I had a good half-cup of sawdust in my hair, and another cup or so on my person, which was quite exciting/distressing for him. Try explaining what saw dust is to a 3 year old with out inciting him to want to use said power tool. When we got home and I showed him what a mess I'd made of the goat pen, he gave me a stern talking to and said, "Mommy, you gotta CLEAN THAT UP! We gonna have Christmas party and you made mess! You gotta clean that up or you get in TROUBLE!" This is the look he gave me: