Hay Lids – FINISHED!
finally
After months we finally, FINALLY, got all six haybox lids finished and installed. Considering I figured out the haybox lid solution back in December it begs the question why did it take more than three months to get them done?! This is a question I ask myself about almost everything almost all of the time. In this case there were a series of setbacks in addition to my normal procrastination and inability to complete tasks.
Getting the materials took longer than planned because our first big snowstorm of the season hit and interrupted the delivery of everything to everywhere including LeVahn Brothers (still the best hardware store ever!). By the time they got the materials and got them cut down to size for us it was solidly into the holiday season which meant I wasn’t able to get everything until after Christmas. After getting the materials they sat around our living room for several weeks casting judgement upon me before I was able to make myself assemble a few of them. This used up much of my “being useful” energy so more time went by before I went out to actually put them on the boxes to make sure everything was okay, at which point I discovered that somewhere along the line a mistake was made in the measurements. The corner pieces we use for the frame are not neat squares but stick out a bit on both sides, plus there is the corner itself which adds its size to the overall length of each side. I had measured the boxes in the field but didn’t think about the extra space needed for the corner pieces until I was standing in line at LeVahn brothers about to tell them what I needed. For some reason this oversight caused me to panic and instead of stepping out of the nonexistent line to do some calculations I freaked out and tried to quickly account for the corners in my head. The result was that one of the dimensions was fine, but the other was off by 2.75 inches for every single box. Luckily they were all too long by 2.75 inches which meant I could cut them down instead of having to buy the materials all over again. However, this also meant I needed to find our pipe cutter and motivating myself to go look for it took even more time. When I finally got around to looking for it the search proved fruitless which meant another trip to LeVahn brothers to buy a new one. I can’t possibly leave the house for only one reason if that reason is for adulting purposes and not say, getting ice cream because we have decided to cheat on our diet, so I had to wait on that until there was some other adulting reason to leave the house and that reason was also in the same direction as the hardware store. Once the pipe cutter was acquired more time went by before I finally tried it out only to realize that I suck at using the pipe cutter only slightly less than Nate does, so the actual cutting of the pipe took several days because I had to rest my useless hand (surgery in May!) in between each one. I now have all the pipe pieces cut to length and re-assemble the first three lid frames along with the hay nets. After the mishap with the frames I though I should go test again now that the hay nets are on and find that my first attempts at measuring and cutting the hay nets was pretty terrible and two of the three are too small and I need to cut new ones out of the second giant piece of hay net I had purchased. At last the lid frames are finished and the correct size, the hay nets have been cut to the correct size, and everything has been assembled; now to install them! We just need a nice day where it isn’t snowing or raining or sleeting or blowing at 50 mph to get them put on. Normally in spring this would be no big deal, but haven’t gotten to spring yet, we’re still stuck in the winter that refuses to leave. We also needed both of us to be available because even though the actual installation is a one person job, it isn’t a one person job when you have the equivalent of a 1500 lb toddler trying to help you with every step.
Most horses would have been scared off by the plastic bag that was holding some of the materials because plastic bags are terrifying for many a horse, those that made it past that would normally have taken off at the first sound of the drill, but not Leeloo. Leeloo hung out with us the entire time we installed all the lids. Nate took a few videos for evidence of Leeloo’s “helping” before he moved into his “keep Leeloo occupied” role so I could get them done with slightly less help.
Though there is always time for head scritches, no matter how many other things need to get done.
But finally – after all the setbacks – the lids are DONE!