Hammers, Ladders, and Accidents

The weather last Friday turned fairly cool – like fall. Saturday was just beautiful. It was so beautiful that we worked all day on the house. Toby and I worked on putting in attic vents. This was done on extremely long ladders since the vents were to be placed at the peak of the roof. Ladders are always a bit scary, not to mention hard on the leg muscles. Jesse worked on tearing out a stucco wall where the two buildings come together.

Most of the time we are pretty safe workers, but occasionally we have our days. This weekend we had several accidents. First off, Toby was up on the ladder banging on the vent trying to make the vent fit in the hole he’d cut. Yes, it was the old "when all else fails, force it." He managed to bang his thumb pretty good – hard enough to make it pop open and bleed. Several years ago when building our present house, Bo did this same thing. He was hanging on a ladder trying to nail something, when he hit his finger, which burst open and bled. I remember thinking he might pass out from the pain. Both men are pretty tough, and smart enough to get down the ladder quickly. Jesse did something similar while tearing out the wall. She managed to hit her wrist – twice – leaving a bruise and knot. Me, well, I had a rather stupid moment with the ladder. I was lowering the ladder, watching the open door way, knowing to move or stop the ladder before it got to the doorway. But the ladder slid down the wall too easily and quickly. It fell into the open doorway, the bottom end flipping up and catching my shinbone. I got a pretty good scrape and bruise on the old shin – minor compared to Toby’s lick.

Sunday was warmer with a strong south wind making things difficult. This time, Jesse was working with Toby up on the ladders while I was the gopher at the bottom. One of the ladders was big and heavy with braces on the top so that it was much safer than the other ladder. The other ladder was just a simple aluminum ladder. I was very aware that the wind could easily blow the aluminum ladder over when no one was on it - it's a bit of a widow-maker. I had been Chicken Little running around saying, "Watch that ladder…"and standing by it to keep it from blowing over. No one else was watching the ladder, because they probably thought I was a bit silly. At one point, we were all taking a break – no one on the ladders. Jesse sat down on the steps to bang out nails on a board that had been removed from the house. We watched some big white cranes flying low towards our pond. The wind was so strong it was as if the cranes were not moving, but suspended in air. They were pretty interesting. About that time the ladder started to slide sideways. I hollered "Look out, look out, look out!" Although Jesse had plenty of time to get out of the way, she thought I was talking about the cranes. Then the ladder fell on her. The good news was that it's just aluminum. The bad news was that it still hurt like a son of a gun. It conked her on the shoulder, back, arm and leg, but none too serious. The bonk on the leg was probably the worst. It could have been much worse.

The Lord is merciful, and I am thankful that none of us were hurt seriously. Today we are going sailing with the GGs. We should be safe.