Why wait?

I've always secretly considered myself my dad's first son. Sorry Carse. It's true. You see before there were boys, with all their "legitimate" anatomy and testosterone, there were 3 girls. Dad had no boys. And because Dad would never consider letting a small thing like gender cloud his plans for a Saturday-work-around-the-house-and-yard marathon, he felt free to work his girls as hard as he would a team of muscle bound football players. I can remember being roused out of bed (at the ungodly hour of 6 am) on any given Saturday to stack the woodpile, cut wood up in the hills for said woodpile, rake slimy walnut leaves and hulls, help build a cover for the well in the front yard, be on hand to "help" build a nifty storage shed, plant rose bushes, plant fruit trees, plant the yearly garden, man the rototiller (usually in bare feet), weed, mow the lawn, prune fruit trees, clean the gutters (again with the bare feet), set up the swimming pool, and any and all tasks that his diabolical mind could dream up while he was falling asleep on Friday nights.

Like I said, Dad didn't care if you owned a woo-haw or a johnson, if you lived under his roof, you were going to earn your keep. And while at the time I was very bitter, I have to hand it to him, he did teach us how to work. Unwittingly, he gave me a self-confidence that I'm not sure many other girls get from their fathers.

Which is why I have just arrived back indoors from trying to construct a trellis system for my raspberry bed. I guess it would never occur to me to wait for C. to get home. I'm certainly capable of running a post-hole digger, measuring boards and cursing. Although I do have to admit that when the post-hole digger sort of kicked back and one of the handles hit me in the face, I kind of wished that Dad had been there to tell me to "deal with it" and instruct me as to the next chore on the list.