We made a board.

For the last 30 years, the rain has been flowing off the roof and hitting this particular board on the front deck. (Before that, the deck was much smaller, so there was no board to be hit by falling water.) The board was about to let go. So, with great resolve and greater trepidation, we set about to fix the deck.

You have to understand that, when carpentry genes were being handed out, I was at the other end of the store, reading comic books. I took shop in junior high school because I had to. All that's left from those two years of learning is a small, pitiable book stand that sits on a shelf at the camp.

In the boathouse, we found enough to get us started. There was a length of 2x6 pressure-treated wood on the rack. We didn't have a Skil^® saw, so we had to choose between a Sawzalls^® and my grandfather's table saw. The table saw won because we believed we had a better chance to cut a straight line with it. Even though the blade wasn't quite right, so we couldn't cut through the 2" on one pass, Sandra got us to a board that was the proper length, width, and depth.

Removing an old, rotten board ought to be easy, eh? It probably would be if we had the right tools. We had a crow bar that was too big and a hammer that was too small. The hammer broke on the third nail. The crow bar was unwieldy, particularly on the nails that had rusted and snapped off at the head. With persistence and a pair of locking pliers, we removed the board and nails.

We thought that screws would be better than nails. Sandra pre-drilled the holes and we used the screwdriver attachment on the drill to drive in the screws. Two stripped screw heads later, we agreed that nails were just fine. I used the butt end of a hatchet to drive the nails flush with the surface.

It took just about an hour and now we have a new board, along with a continuing happy marriage and all of our fingers and toes,
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With apologies to Dave Barry's classic, "How to make a board."