In Which I am Helpful

...Or at least active.

So when I came back from hanging out with these guys in VA:

Colonial Virginians represent!

Cathleen immediately pulled me off the train and into the pasture to finish up the new barn single-handedly.  I'm lying, it was mostly Marco and Marco.

So the barn was in place, but it needed stone dust put in, tamped, and then the mats tucked into place.  Cathleen had shoveled about half of it (stuff is heavy!) and after a string of failed attempts to corral man-labor she found success in dudes who worked at her friend's farm, let's call them Marco and Marco (although, those really are their names) to help with the rest.

I bounded up the hill all confident enthusiasm, "Oh, should we have the tractor? I'll go get the tractor, I'm really good at driving the tractor, bc you know I've done it once before."  Of course I couldn't get it started.  Luckily Marco could.  So the rest of the operation was basically shoveling dust until Marco or Marco would ask for a screwdriver, or a sledge hammer, or a pink unicorn, and I'd say, "Sure, def, one minute," and go bounding back down the hill to ask mom if she knew where dad kept the pink unicorns, then we'd go and collect them and reappear triumphantly at the worksite.  Those guys were great.  I should've taken pictures, but I already felt bad that they were basically doing all the work and I was supervising, I thought photographing it would just add insult to injury.  They did scope out their inheritance possibilities if they wanted to marry me though, and were also very impressed with my Spanish and soccer goalie knowledge.  Cathleen and I agreed we COULD'VE done it by ourselves, it just might have taken approximately 47 years.  And managing the automatic tamper ("la bailarina" to Marco and Marco) would have been tricky.  I would've gotten hungry too. 

Anyway, good job!  And the finished product looked like this:

It was pretty close to sunset at this point (depressingly early--thanks winter!), but we were hoping to get the horses back in the pasture that night, so they could more easily have access to food (minor detail).  So that just left putting the fence back up.  Good thing I'm so good at that!

Check out those skills!  Mom and I were working on the last one when dad arrived home and informed me of a few things
1) I was putting the posts in backwards.  And upside down (not really upside down, although it came close a few times).
2) apparently you're supposed to make a hole with a crowbar first so that you don't have to stand on a 4 wheeler.  I thought I was just really short. And plus, I like driving it.  I feel hardcore.
3)  I guess they're supposed to be in a straight line.  Who knew?

But, they were good enough!  And look at the form! (mine, not theirs.  Theirs is crooked)

Who can argue with that? (And I'm pretty much still sore.  Yeah it's been a week, so what?)

So we rolled out the fence (by this time it was a full-family affair, Mom, Dad, even Liz, fresh of the DC train), and stuck the herd back in.  They were psyched.

The last step in this process is the electricity.  We got it scoped out and it was all basically ready to work with, except that little ditches had to be dug from the fenceline to the two barns, poly pipe laid down, and covered back up again.  Good thing I'm so good at digging ditches!

I started this one.  Dad finished it.  He can't bear to watch me work.  I helped though.  Swear.  Then luckily we had John Williams visiting, and he really can't bear to watch anyone else work, so he dug this one.

With one hand. In five minutes.  I'm only slightly exaggerating.  The goats loved it.

Check out the burs, by the by.

Then we put down the pipe (that dad and I bought at Tractor supply, I felt really legit, showing up all muddy and throwing it in the truck--that dad drove...) and covered it up and we're all set!

It's like ditches never even existed.  Soon they'll actually have electricity in them!

So, all in all, almost all done, and the end result is this:

Complete with an EZ Dollar!  And a Pigloo!