I took a couple more days off last week, trying to get some more work done on the building I am constructing, as well as some other things that needed to be done around the house.

For the most part, I worked alone this time. I managed to get the posts set, the floor in place and, with some help from a friend, the band board around the top of the posts.

My next step is building the building loft that I have had planned for some time. I haven't fully decided how tall that loft will be, but I usually try to start somewhere and figure out where to stop later.

Work on a building or a deck is often decided as time goes by, sometimes by the necessities of making up for earlier errors and other times by trying to figure out what the best use of the materials would be.

I enjoy working on things, but I more enjoy watching a building that starts with nothing rise up and become something. It's the part of the work that really makes it rewarding. When I build a fence, I can always depend on it growing each day until the work is finished. Then, I can look down the straight, neat row and see from the end to the beginning and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Gardening has a similar feel to it, with the clean and neat garden rows eventually (hopefully) bearing fruit and rewarding a spring and summer of labor.

Work has grown more abstract for me than that, especially in my current job. I can look at the finished product, which usually is a story or a column, but it's here for a week and then gone. I can only hope the lasting mark that is made on the landscape of our society is a beneficial one. However, with that fence, I could see and touch the benefits of labor immediately.

The building, which will give me a workshop and storage, is the same thing. As I work and move forward with the project, I can see the work evolving and continuing to grow. When the job is finished, I will have a structure that is both useful and beneficial.

I enjoy my job and I being able to write and share my thoughts, but it's always nice to leave the world of intangible words and enter the realm of the tangible.

Sometimes it isn't easy to make the transition. Hands that are usually used for operating a keyboard aren't always ready to man a sledgehammer, posthole diggers, hammers and rough poles. I find myself picking out splinters most evenings and covered with more cuts and blisters than I care to think about.

The human body is a miraculous design, a thing that can adapt to many different uses in a reasonably short period of time. Being in the sun all day is another thing to which I've not been accustomed. I have had a few minor sunburns on my arms and neck, not to mention the day that I took off my shirt for an hour or so and ended up looking like fresh lobster later that afternoon.

Luckily, my body also responds well to the sun—especially when mixed with a healthy evening dosage of aloe. By the following day, most of the tint was gone and the skin had turned from pink to bronze.

I told my friend that I'm not sure I would survive if I had to do this kind of work every day. Of course, at the time I was nursing a sore back, sunburn, blistered hands and aforementioned cuts and splinters. After a good night's sleep, it always seems like everything looks a little better.

So far, the only part of the job that has been a real annoyance for me is when I had to trim the poles with the chainsaw and ended up covered with creosote sawdust.

I can honestly say that the result wasn't pleasurable. I don't like the oily smell or the itchy feel of the stuff, which seems to turn into almost a powder when it sprays all over you. There really wasn't much choice that I could see as I stood atop the ladder with posts that needed to reach conformity.

Even so, I survived the experience, along with the subsequent squaring up of the building top level, which took several hours of climbing up and down ladders and moving the band boards around. By the time it was done, I had climbed the ladder at least 40 times. I also ended up working to try and straighten the tops of two the poles, which weren't always headed in exactly the same direction as the bases. This was done with a big chain and a come-along and lots of climbing up and down and measuring. Hopefully it and the walls will hold the poles where they need to be.

I always want to make sure I'm pretty much in square for a metal roof, since the metal will run out wrong on the end if it isn't. For instance, out of square means that the top of the roof could be exposed, while the bottom has a large overhang.

In the end, the whole thing was more or less square. In fact, the top was only off about 1/8 inch when all was said in done. I hope to have a little more time to work this coming weekend.

I also took a little time to pay attention to my garden, which had somewhat fallen into a state of neglect. A little grass was starting to appear with the weeds here and there, but a pass through with the tiller and a little time pulling and hoeing weeds had everything looking fine. I even managed to put in and stake up a few more of my tomato baskets, which I hope will help keep everything neat later this year as the crops grow.

I applied my first pesticide of the year Saturday, attempting to control what appeared to be potato bugs that were munching on a few of my tomato plants. I understand that both tomato and potato plants are in the nightshade family, but I hadn't seen potato bugs eating tomato plants before. Out of the 30 or so tomatoes that I set out, about 25 or so remain and about 18 are really large, strong and healthy. But I'm sure that it will be more than enough to produce a fine crop this year. I can almost taste the tomato sandwiches now just thinking about it.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

Email: allnews@ls.net