Stairway to Death

We've needed to replace our back steps for a while now. I've damned near broken my neck more times than I care to count, trying to go feed the chickens.

Ma and Aunt Moses built the ones pictured, 20 years ago. Neither of them is particularly handy with tools to begin with, so the steps were never very sturdy, but at least you could get out of the house.

There was a lot of drama that day. When Ma started putting them together, she had one of the stringers (the uppy-down side bits) turned around wrong and insisted that they'd cut it backwards. We tried to show her that she needed to flip it around the right way, but she called Lowe's and raised hell, drove the 45 minutes back to the store and got another one.

Such is life with Ma.

I'd been looking online at different options. Concrete steps were like $300 bucks and I couldn't figure out how the hell we'd even get them around the house. The one gate is narrow, enough room for one person to walk through, then you have to navigate around what's left of the can house, squeezing between it and the chicken coop
.

Not an option.

I had decided to go with fiberglass, but then I was liberated from The Asylum and couldn't justify spending the money. After long periods of time staring at the granny trap and wringing my hands, I finally broke down and bought all the pieces to build new ones.

It bears mentioning that I am useless with a hammer, always have been. I can beat on a nail for 10 minutes straight and it will go everywhere but in the wood. By the time I'm done, it's a mangled mess, one thumb is blue and I've put drunken sailors to shame with my colorful use of the English language.The Amazon, however, assured me that she's a wildcat with a hammer.

She thinks she's a Viking Shield Maiden, with her half shaved head, purple hair, tattoo and prominent nose ring.

*whishpers* sometimes I'm afraid

Anywho, yesterday we she assembled the steps. They're beautimous. And in the living room.

We'll have to wait for another day to install them. The old steps are half buried, compliments of Ma, Dubya and his baby backhoe. You can see from the picture that the bottom step is submerged in dirt. There will be digging, smoothing out and other assorted heavy labor type crap.

Dubya and Ma were apparently having a crazy spell at the same time and decided to rip out the rock wall my gr-gr-grandfather built and smooth it all out so we had more yard. In the process, he half-buried our central air unit, rendering it useless, buried the bottom step and made a huge mess.

I got home just as he was ripping the roof off the beautiful little can house my gr-gr-grandfather also built.

I stopped them before they finished. It pisses me off every time I look at it.

But anyways...

We're hoping we can bribe one of TA's friends from work to come help with the heavy stuff. Soon I'll be able to go feed the chickens without risking life and limb.

Hopefully.

Ya'll have a good one. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!