the thumb

So I'm sitting here with an injured thumb.  nothing drastic, just something I like to call 'a blister gone bad' (hmmm, I should get that trademarked).  Anyways if anyone is actually reading this, I'll let them know that the blister was actually the result of doing some manual labor in the yard.  I know, pretty creepy, huh?

It all started off a few months ago when our dog Kiko saw a squirrel and decided he needed to chase it, through our fence which had become less than secure.  A mound of rock and dirt which was once a nice flowerbed had decided to make like the coastal hills of so-cal and slide down.  It wasn't too bad till it started to push the bottom of the fence into the neighbors yard.  So over the course of the last few months, I got several calls from the wife letting me know that she's retrieved Kiko from our neighbors yard...again.

So when time finally allowed and we had the finances to purchase some new fence boards, the time had come.  So the digging began, which was actually pretty hard considering the dirt was mixed with 1" river rock.  So Becky and I spent a few hours digging it out, by which time, we were done for the day.

Sunday I stayed home with Isaac as he was sick and Becky went to church.  I stalled till about 11 when I went and stared at the dismal fence for a little while.  I had taken 4 boards down when the neighbor came out with his dog.  I informed him that two sections of fence would be down for a little while, and he said that's fine as their dog (actually his daughters, he was dog sitting) was kind of a wimp.  I suggested letting our dogs and theirs play, which they did, and did alot of.

So as I tore down boards and the dogs ran around (btw, the previously mentioned blister had already gone bad), I got all the old boards down and the old support beams down as well.  by this time Becky had gotten home and started bringing the new board out of the shop as I was getting the new beams up in place....once we agreed on a height, I started in on it.  about half way through, I noticed the sun was gone and there was some mean looking clouds coming in.  It turned out we were about 2.75 boards short, so Becky and Isaac ran to Lowes to get the wood, I started moving the old boards out of the way so the boys wouldn't hurt themselves, and it started to rain, and rain, and RAIN.


The rain lasted about 1-2 hours.  By the time it stopped we had enough boards to finish, so I ran our and nailed up the last few boards on what I would like to call Sector 1 & 2 of our back fence.  I think we have about 4 or 5 more to go.  Hopefully my thumb will feel better.