And so they went forth... by Cinda Lavely

A week after the work weekend I woke from a restless sleep to rough hands shaking me awake. My mother's face showed in the half light of my room.
"I came in to shut your window," she said, "and you were shouting. You were having a nightmre."
I glanced bleary-eyed out the window. Rain was coming down in torrents -some of it had blown in and soaked the blankets. "What was I shouting?" I asked.
"Something about a shed and roof panels."
"Hmmm."

No mystery to the four of us who braved mighty, misty Mother Nature and met in Royalton for the second Work Weekend. Mike Guenette and I smiled at the clear morning skies that shone down on the South Shore and cheerfully left it all behind for the imposing, antagonistic clouds which always seem to converge over the Hundred Aker Wood. After all, this was a Work Weekend. How's a body supposed to get work done when there's sunshine to bask in?
Well, we were not given an opportunity to find out.

Day 1
"For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth..."

Mike and I left Mike's car at the top of the treacherously muddy hill into the site and traipsed down to the Lower Cabin to find... nothing. Our comrades Ian and Teresa had not yet arrived. In just minutes, however, we heard them in the distance. The first thing we noticed was that Teresa's car, driven by Ian, was trapped in the mudslide Mike had just opted not to negotiate. The second thing was that as soon as Ian got out of the car, it began to rain.
What followed was momentarily reminiscent of a scene from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" --a very heavily loaded vehicle, a great height, a slippery slope, and one or more pained expressions....
Upon reaching the cabin a state of lunch was declared, and as we put together the brand new Coleman Sink and cooked up some grilled cheese sandwiches(good enough to take paint right off a table!), Ian explained to us the glorious variety of gear he had brought and the wonderous plan --indeed, mission-- for this work weekend. An ark.
My thoughts, drifting out over the pond in the drizzle, snapped back to attention. "Sorry-- did you say 'ark'?"
I was put down almost at once. A shed, that was the project, Ian wanted a shed to house the lawnmower. But in the downpour Ian's excited gesturing seemed to me to say, "300 cubits...50 cubits...30 cubits..."
But first, Ian had brought shelter, so that we could undertake our labors out of the rain: an immense patio roof, such as you'd use to cover a boat or a truck from the elements. Eagerly we assembled the poles and hauled the tarpulin into place. As we stood admiring the contraption, however, the clouds parted and the sun came out...making the shelter unecessary. It was just for a brief moment, but long enough to point out that farce was going to be a big part of the weekend's experience.

Several hours later Teresa and I had a set of instructions (only 50 pages long!) and a tape measure in hand and were patiently prompting Mike and Ian to bolt, screw, or otherwise make fast the pieces of aluminum we had lain out for them. They, in turn, were patiently prompting us to show them the instructions so that they could see for themselves how things should go. And this went on for some time.
We eventually hauled the frame into the woods beside the new cabin and cheerfully began to endure the Mosquito Zoning Committee, which numbered in the thousands and had been sent to welcome us.
Night fell. By then the shed consisted of 3 sides, 3 roof beams, one citronella candle and four hungry occupants. We called it a day. We called it dinnertime. We called it a shed. If anyone called it anything else, I guess they kept it to themselves.
One excellent meal restored our spirits. Truffles, aged past perfection but still edible, were brought out and Ian once again took up the burden --this time of teaching (in my case, reteaching) Mike and me how to play contract bridge. And this lasted long into the night, so that I will not be telling you the tale in this installment of our activities.

Day 2 "And behold, the face of the ground was dry."
Far from it...and the face of the clouds looked even less encouraging. The day dawned dry enough, however, to set us about our business. Ian and Mike wrestled the shed's roof into alignment (difficult mainly because the building was not entirely squared); Teresa wrestled fallen trees and brush off the path to the old cabin (seemingly relocating an entire forest); I headed into the Old Cabin itself to wrestle that ancient chest-of-drawers down to the lower cabin. It was a humid day for all that wrestling, but we did our best.
Several times in the old cabin I was forced to ring the windchimes and sing a brief 'Requiem aeternam' for the lost souls of found mice --found dead, that is. Gruesome work.
The arrival of people on the site seems to trigger the rain mechanism in the Royalton clouds; Steve Kondi and his gimpy dog brought a serious deluge with them, and after hauling equipment under cover we opted for a late lunch. It was already 3PM.
Mike and I made a sorrowful exit. We offered several times to assist Ian and Teresa in manhandling the car up the hill. Our offers were demurred. The pair had gallantly elected to stay late, until the rain had stopped, if necessary even staying through to Monday. We shouldered our packs and bid them farewell. In our opinion the rain followed us, viciously, nearly all the way home, and for their sake I hope it was so.

And the work didst continue.... by Teresa Lyons

Day 2 1/2 "And so the earth was covered with mud."
This weekend Mother Nature took no chances. She spread the rainclouds over all of New England, mocking Sunday forecasts of "mostly sunny, hot, humid, and 90 degrees" by keeping all Workweekenders in a warm(-ish), dim rain even after half of the party headed for home.
By the time Mike and Cinda left, I had already lost my will to fight to stay dry or clean. A partially muddied windbreaker lay discarded somewhere. I had started to revel in how filthy and soggy I could become after embracing fallen saplings for hours and accidentally plunging my feet into the pond. At least I had gotten out of helping Cinda with her mousy funerals!
Ian decided to join me in my revelry, suggesting that we each grab a shovel and try digging drainage ditches across the ooziest part of the road. He had salvaged a length of PVC pipe with holes in it that he thought we should bury to channel the water. I nearly lost my sneakers in the sticky mud I was trying to form into a canal. Ian discarded his shoes.
The shed still had numerous virgin holes that needed screws or nuts and bolts. Ones that were slyly neglected in the instructions. We spent a couple of hours filling these in, during which time I realized what the little plastic washers were for (Cinda and I had puzzled over the apparent randomness of the placement of washers in the directions fairly early on) and found that several had been neglected or put in the wrong side. Sigh.
To finish the day we soothed ourselves in the decadence of a warm shower, cleverly rigged by Ian from his solar shower bag and a few gallons of stove-heated water.

Day 3 "And behold, the face of the ground was dry."
Yes, amazingly enough, it's true. Monday made the whole weekend seem like nothing more than a dimly-remembered nightmare of piles of screws and panels. Oops, that theme has already been played...
A tad discouraged by not having gotten very far down our list of "Work Weekend Things-to-Do" (I think third on the list after 'assemble the canopy' and 'assemble the shed' was 'construct a medieval castle from stones and mud you find around'), we set about doing all the little things that have to be done on a dry day: mowing the lawn, weed-whacking, priming and painting (and again not quite completing) the dock and lounging around on a hammock during lunch. Ian planted a plug of concrete with a U-lock embedded in it in the center of the shed - to lock the lawnmower to someday. Ian's question of the day was "Will the Quikcrete ever set?" (this followed his comment that the hole he dug for it kept filling with groundwater). My question of the day was "Why am I so stupid?" (this followed careful application of sunscreen to my shoulders and subsequent terrible burning of the tops of my feet while mowing the lawn).
I thought it was time for a break when Ian jumped in the pond. Will I never learn? It was just another project. Haul the lower pond 'dock', which had been freed as a raft, back to the shore, heave it up to get one of the barrel floats out from under it, slip around in the mud trying to get the barrel to land to drain it, etc, etc. Somehow it all ended with a rela- tively stable-looking level dock nicely anchored to the shore.
The rest of the day was spent tying up loose ends - thoroughly disinfecting and lining the drawers to the dresser and kitchen cabinet, disassembling the canopy, and storing bunches of stuff in the new shed. Somehow the day just went, ending with strapping a defunct lawnmower (push-type, not ride-in type, thank goodness) to the top of my car.

Day 4 "And on the fourth day the Hundred Acre Wood rested... And waited for a new day when it would be shared with the rest of the Festers!"