THE Lift

I have had bucket lift envy for sometime now. I’ve found this is a fairly common phenomenon among those of us with big tall barns. We were eating dinner with a wise older farmer from our church and his eyes glazed over a tad, when he found out we had a bucket lift for the weekend.

A big blue giant with a 40 foot lift.

Everything looks different from up high, although I seldom actually looked ‘down’.

We organized our time with THE Lift by the hardest jobs to do with a ladder. The first item on THE List was installing two new windows in The Buckaroo room. The new windows were hefty and the opening is the highest spot on the house. There are also electrical lines to be careful/cautious/mindful of. My Loving Spouse squeezes The Lift right into place, without smashing the downstairs windows in the process. (Harder than one might think, as The Lift does not move smoothly, but more in fits and jerks).

The old storm windows come down and with it a long and disgusting amount of dead flies. The flies had been stuck between the storm window and the old painted in place windows.

Ah, the country life….

The windows go in without a hitch….on our end. We had special ordered the windows from THE Home Depot. They had managed to place the safety catches on the windows in places that will do no earthly good in keeping kids safe from falling out of these very high widows. I launch into a long angry rant about Home Depot. This is not the first frustration brought on by that place. I pray for Lowes success, while saying the blessing at dinner later that night.

We spent the afternoon spraying 10 gallons of ‘Crabby Apple Red’ paint from Sherwin Williams on the highest, hardest to reach barns on our farm.

How to paint the cupola has been an often discussed topic. We’ve been told that the previous owner tied a rope around his youngest son, threw the (very long) rope over the barn and then drove away from the barn on a tractor, thereby hauling the boy up to the cupola. We’ve never found anyone small enough and brave enough to try this stunt. So enters The Lift…

My Loving Spouse makes a harness to keep him safe and attached to the lift, as even at the end of it’s reach is not quite long enough. (Note to self, if we ever do this again, get the 60 foot lift).

He gets all of the cupola he can safely manage painted. It is clearly time for lunch. We then set back into The Lift together to paint all the white parts of the barns, that we’d inadvertently sprayed with red. Armed with wasp spray we keep a diligent eye out for the flying stinging pests.

By the end of the day, we are exhausted..and the barns are looking grand.

The only thing left is to keep an eye on that cow of mine. Agnes was/is due to calf anytime.

We’re grateful to have this done and dreaming of our vacation next month!

We work so well together.

Indeed, we are blessed.