# 255 - Power Tool CrAzY - POW!

The garden is growing beautifully! Tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, onions, sweet basil, squash, lettuce, and more! This year, we won't let the chickens destroy our crops.

Our first year of having a small backyard flock of chickens has taught us a few valuable lessons in conjunction with gardening:

1. Chickens will tear your garden to pieces!

2. Don't think the chickens will only eat the bugs and magically be glorious garden do-gooders for your growing vegetables! Ha!

3. Chickens are opportunistic and constantly hungry. They spend their day pecking and scratching for food. They have even devoured my jalapeno peppers, and these little stinkers are HOT.

4. For some reason, the chickens don't really crave herbs. I guess "weeds" are unappealing to them.

5. Don't garden barefoot while wearing red toenail polish with chickens nearby. If your toe looks similar to a juicy tomato, beware. Don't say I didn't warn you.

To protect our vegetable garden and to call a truce with the chickens, we decided to make it easy on everyone to simply put up a low fence around the garden, made of trellis. Boundaries are a glorious thing sometimes for everyone involved! I love healthy boundaries!

Today, I got to help Deputy Dave build the fence around our little veggie garden and this was very exciting for me because I was entrusted to use the pneumatic staple gun. And the noise was scary, at first, but then I got accustomed to the "POW" sound or the WHOSH of air, if I pulled the trigger too slow.

However, I have a head-full of long, curly hair and didn't know that my first POW of the staple gun would create a massive burst of air, upward to my head, a burst of air so powerful that it caused my hair to blow straight up in the air. Was I startled? Slightly.

I quickly learned to turn the staple gun sideways to let the compressed air release to my side instead of directly in my face.

Once I began to get the hang of this power tool, I confess, I became a little too obsessed. I found myself leaning over the trellis edge that needed to be stapled into the ground post and I decided to staple every little criss-cross of trellis touching the corner post. POW, POW, POW, POW x 3 more POW's!

 It's good to be secure and over-stapled, or so I thought.

Deputy Dave kindly informs me, after refilling the staple gun for the second time within a span of approximately 15 minutes, "You only need about four to five staples per end of trellis for it to be secure, not twelve plus."

I look down at the power tool in my hand; it ached to be used --- POW --- but I partially surrender. I agreed to hold back the urge to pop every single piece of wood in sight.

Later that afternoon I begin to think about all the tasks we will have to confront while building our cabin in the woods, so I ask, "Does a nail gun work the same way?"

Deputy Dave looks up at me with narrowed eyes, "Yes it does, but with nails, of course."

I feel all giddy inside. Pneumatic nail gun lessons will surely be next. However, I can sense this tiny bit of dread within Deputy Dave, as if he might possibly think we won't be able to afford the number of nails I'll be wanting to utilize --- POW, POW, POW.

Then, I spy the circular saw laying nearby and come up with another brilliant plan. Tomorrow, I think I want to use the circular saw. I told him that I saw a few cuts on some left over trellis that I'd like to make on my own.

He answered, "Hmmmphhh."

I don't think a grunt is a proper reply. Actually, I think he had hit the point to where he was tuning me out and responding with nonsensical sounds instead of words. I've been married over 25 years and have learned that these sound effects keep a man free from commiting to anything or to obligating themselves to any statements. Men are like that.

But that's okay because we women are what you might call, "relentless."

Maybe I should tame the inner-construction madwoman within. However, I'm hooked. I finally have caught a glimpse into the world of WORKING WITH power tools, and I don't think I can ever make it back to my previous reality. I've stepped into the realm of Man's-Power-Tool-Land and it's pretty cool; I don't want to go back to plain vacuum cleaners and blenders and dishwashers...I'm ready to use tools that MAKE THINGS!

Most definitely, I'm ready for more POW moments!