By Ben Nitkin on
I just returned to school last week after spending 3 weeks in Colorado. Helen's grandmother has a ranch out there. The ranch is aging a bit; the house hasn't seen much maintainance recently. Helen and I made a habit of recording the things we fixed. Although it's incomplete and terse compared to my usual writeups, the list is reproduced below, for archival sake.
- Removed broken window by the chicken coop
- Repaired coop latch so the door closes easily
- Replaced broken F350 taillight cover and bulbs
- Partially pushed out a dent in the truck
- Slightly improved on the hay hoist we built last year
- Installed an electric winch to supplement the manual hoist
- Cleaned the top deck of the barn
- Filled the barn with twelve tons of hay
- Replaced burned-out bulb in barn loft
- Changed motion-activated bulbs for new ones
- Mucked out back stall (there must've been a ton of shit in there)
- Mucked out pasture behind barn (multiple tons of shit)
- Added endstops to the front and rear barn doors to keep them on their rails
- Lifted back barn door to the correct height
- Replaced horse-eaten trim on the front barn doors
- Reinstalled stallion bars in the stalls and reduced the bracket separation for better durability
- Painted front barn doors to match each other
- Rebuilt the archway leading to the chicken coop (with pressure treated wood, so it won't rot for a while)
- Glued a leg back onto the dining room table (cheap construction)
- Glued a chairs leg back together (the wood split cleanly along the grain)
- Organized the ranch's tools into a central spot
That's all I have written. We were only on the ranch for two weeks, but I'm hoping it's more livable now.
I might have some pictures later. Truth be told, Helen and I had our hands full fixing stuff up; there isn't much in the way of a digital record.