Jefferson County… I need you to rate my wood.
Settle down. We’re talking about the livestock shelter.
Forty-one years old and I finally built something with my own two hands.
Can I get a Boy Scout badge now?
Not Eagle Scout. Let’s not get carried away.
Maybe the “Didn’t Lose a Finger” Merit Badge.
Because honestly, that feels earned.
For those keeping score…
• I’d never used a circular saw.
• I’d never used a sawhorse.
• I bought the wrong screws because apparently 1½ inches and 2½ inches are two completely different lifestyles.
Who knew?
I thought a screw was a screw.
Turns out the longer ones are just little javelins waiting to stab you in the palm.
The best part…
I didn’t even watch a YouTube video.
There comes a point in every man’s life where searching…
“How to buy lumber at Lowe’s.”
…is such a direct attack on your own masculinity that you just raw dog the entire experience.
No tutorial.
No plans.
No measurements.
Just blind confidence and enough caffeine to convince yourself, “Yeah… I think roofs are supposed to slope.”
I know what’s coming.
Every Tom, Dick, Harry, Jesus, retired contractor, structural engineer, and one guy named Gary who “has been building barns for 52 years” is about to explain why this thing should already be condemned.
The Amish would’ve finished this before breakfast using three hand tools, a mule, and positive thoughts.
Good thing most of them don’t have Facebook.
I’d never emotionally recover from being judged by a guy who can raise an entire barn with six neighbors, two sandwiches, and the Lord.
My buddy Dale walked over, looked at it for about four seconds and said…
“Looks like a manger.”
A manger?
Dale…
This isn’t a manger.
This is Section 8 housing for whatever financially irresponsible Facebook Marketplace purchase my fiancée falls in love with next.
Today it’s goats.
Tomorrow it’ll be a miniature donkey.
By next month I’ll be standing in a pasture Googling whether alpacas can get seasonal depression because somebody listed one as “free to a good home.”
The only thing missing is the paint.
I wanted that color-shifting purple-and-green chameleon paint with a white Corvette racing stripe down the middle.
If I’m going to build something that looks like it was designed by a man who skipped the instructions on principle, I at least want the livestock living in something that wins “Best in Show” at Cars and Coffee.
Instead, Lowe’s only sells fifty-seven shades of…
“Contractor Beige.”
So for $98, the wrong screws, zero experience, no YouTube, and an unhealthy amount of undeserved confidence…
I’d call this a win.
The future animals haven’t filed any complaints yet.
Although the goats are probably already drafting a strongly worded Yelp review.
Dispatches like this one are being collected in What The F(arm): Sixty Dispatches from an Unqualified Ohio Farmer — $40, half of which turns straight into hay for the horses, the mini donkey, and the baby goats. The presses roll when 100 people pre-order.