May 2018

It was the day of the big arrival.

The cabin lumber was to be delivered sometime between 8am-10am and we were ready.

Well, sort of.

My aunt, Dad, and I rolled out of bed bright and early at 6:00 am so we could have an hour before the cabin got there in order to get ready.

I had prepped the undrivable lane to be drivable at least half of the way as long as it hadn’t rained in the days leading up to the delivery. If it could be dropped off that far down then we would only have to carry the 2,000 lbs of materials ⅛ of a mile, not a ¼ mile.

Of course, Ohio decided to be Spring and rained literally all week and the day of delivery. It was going to be a very long muddy day.

On the early morning drive down to the land, splashing through deep puddles, my aunt and I repeated to ourselves affirmations of awesomeness. Anything less and we would have arrived at the farm already dejected to have to do this hard work in the rain.

She approached it like she was hunting.

I approached it like I was on Workcamp with EYG.

Dad was just…well…Dad and put his head down and got the work done because he’s awesome like that.

The day didn’t start well.

Dad’s truck got stuck in some deep mud and Aunt G spent an hour trying to dig him out while I trekked all of our gear down to the cabin build site.

I still held a fool’s hope that the truck would be able to deliver the cabin at least a quarter of the way down the lane. All of my fingers and toes were crossed.

We were all ecstatic when we sighted the truck and trailer coming down the road. It was here! I could believe this was actually happening!

The driver carefully turned around and started backing down the lane. Immediately his wheels sunk into one foot of deep mud. Shoot. He drove it as far as he felt comfortable…which was about 12 feet in from the road.

This day was going to be even longer than we wanted it to be.

We unpiled it, said our goodbyes and stood in the rain staring at the monumental task ahead of us. That’s 2,000 lbs of materials down ¼ mile lane in the rain and with 6+ inches of mud in some places.

Well, roll up your sleeves, there’s work to be done.

There were times where my mind just wandered, trying to distract myself from how tired and gross I felt. Other times I started singing the blues at the top of my lungs to give my feet a rhythm to follow. Just. Keep. Going.

I’ve done some pretty hard and grueling jobs before but this just might have topped the list.

With the help of my aunt’s super sweet wheeled inventions and Dad and mine’s brute strength, we hauled almost 2/3rds of the materials down. Beaten, muddy, soaked, and bruised we trudged back home for the evening. All of us slept quite soundly that night.

 

The next day my aunt and I were back in action, sore shoulders and all, to finish the job. Of course, THAT day was sunny and beautiful. We still slipped and slid on mud, but at least it wasn’t raining.

 

All I can say is my body felt like it carried a herd of elephants.

The good thing of doing terrible things two days in a row is that the second day helped us work out some kinks in our muscles. Though it did add new ones…

We took a day off to let our feet and boots actually dry all the way, then the whole family came down to start building.

Here we go!

• 

• 

• 

•