An Ode to Dan

What do you do when you have a talented friend who can fix anything, does it quickly and efficiently and won't let us reward him for his effort and the huge load he takes off OilMan's shoulders. I'm pretty sure OilMan could have fixed the sagging gate, in fact he has...several times. What really needed to be fixed was whatever caused it to keep sagging to the point that it took two hands and lots of brute force to open it. This often proved almost impossible if one's two hands were full of trash to be deposited in the bins behind the gate. 

Dan and OilMan took the gate off, discovered that it was an old heavy metal gate, sandwiched between boards to match the house and heavy plywood  They built a new gate with a simple wooden frame and ditched the old metal and heavy plywood and it works beautifully. Dan even went home and got his staple gun and a huge compressor (his smaller one was 'in use' probably Tobi was using it to split wood or install a new wing on the chicken coop) so they could fasten the boards to the front of the gate without splitting them with nails. 

It pays to have the right tools and this man has the right tool for every job. Too bad he lives at the top of a mountain two valleys away! I don't think Tobi would let us  move him into the guest room....even if we let her come too. We’d even let her bring the chickens and Skippy the border collie....

With the gate all fixed, they even got a good start on fixing the steps so that the stones aren't resting on the irrigation pipe. I wasn't able to get a picture of that...at least not one that either of them would have been happy for me to post on the internet.

Maybe we can find some tool Dan covets and doesn't have yet, drop it off on his doorstep, ring the doorbell and run away!

Thank you Dan...you are a treasure beyond price!