The boys went up to the mountain cabin again today. Their goals were to haul up as many of the cement piers and deck boards as they could, plus to continue construction of the deck support frame. They succeeded in both efforts, despite bands of rain and taking along our dogs. I heard both of them complain multiple times once they were home how tiring it was hauling a wheelbarrow full of concrete piers (two or three at a time) up the long way to the cabin. The long way was the original path, which is half a mile compared to the short way which is a third. The original path was a slower climb, but it was steady uphill the whole way to the clearing just above the cabin. The newer path, that we used all last year, gained almost all of its elevation in the first 300 yards, with a brutal grade, before it levels out to a gentle incline most of the rest of the way.
On the way home, T was exhausted and absolutely starving, in the extreme way a man in his 30s often is after a day of climbing, hauling, and construction. He was hangry, more accurately. So when they drove through the residential mountain roads home, and a horse escaped his pasture almost directly in front of them, of course T was cranky that Mr S-P had to pull over and coerce the horse back behind his fence. I learned that not long after that, he stopped the truck again, backed up, and shooed a bird out of the road. T was flabbergasted that they had to stop and tend to so many animals before they could go home and get dinner. I admit, I was laughing a little too hard at this, telling him he's recreating my life for the last three decades. As long as I've known Mr S-P, we had to stop and rescue animals from the road. T and his girlfriend couldn't believe it at first that once we even stopped to convince a rattlesnake to clear the road near Calico Ghost Town in the high desert of California. However, they had no trouble believing he'd swerve on the interstate to avoid hitting butterflies. I had endless stories to tell, but for the sake of brevity, I only shared two or three.
While the guys were gone, I got started on my D&D table design. I struggled to imagine how to make it collapsible yesterday, while I was clearing out the theater room. Today, I started with notebook paper and a tape measure, and having something to make notes on made all the difference in the world. I have most of the kinks worked out completely, and just a few new wrinkles left, like how to make the two sections of table join securely enough that no one could snap the joint by leaning on it. I found some videos of people making their own, and it helped me considerably in my own unique design. I am on the right path now. I'm proud of what I've done on my own to design the custom table. Still gonna need a partner to help me with the table saw, though. There's no way around that.
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