On any farm or ranch there is need for a mechanic/all around maintenance man. The more affluent ranches, of course, have the luxury of hiring such a man full time; some get by with part time help; and some have to do their own. A homestead is no different as there is a never ending list of broken, malfunctioning, ill-tempered items and machinery needing repaired. Having six boys seems to augment this problem beyond the normal!
Thankfully we have the luxury of having Kit's parents close by, and about once a week or so his dad comes up and helps Kit with his projects, and if Kit is gone, I can call and he will come and fix whatever the boys have managed to destroy. So it works out pretty well for the most part. But every now and then both men are gone, and that can really leave me up a creek, with all the maintenance issues.
Since I can't hire someone to come and live full-time here and do maintenance, the next best solution is to raise one. Over the years, as the boys have gotten older and personality traits and mental capabilities have developed, our eldest son has shown he has the fix-it-all, engineering mindset.
He is my right-hand-man when the men are gone. He knows how things work around here, where the tools are, how to use them, and the questioning and intuitive knack of knowing how things are supposed to look, and function.
One dilemma I had was the wagon I use to haul all my milking equipment and buckets back and forth to the stanchion was in disrepair, and had been for some time, but I was still limping it along. CW managed to patch it multiple times for me and we were able to keep it going. In fact, every time he had to fix it he would beg me to allow him to disassemble my wagon and use some of the parts to build a new one. I was a bit hesitant to allow this as that wagon was my one and only transport - such as it was. I didn't want to lose even its limited functionality. So, I kept putting him off, thinking it would be a good project with "daddy" supervision at some point.
But the day came when the steering and running gear mechanisms failed during morning chores. Naturally, Kit was leaving that morning to go back to the woods for work. We quickly made plans to get another one ordered but it could take a couple of weeks to get here and I was going to be without a way to haul buckets easily. I was NOT happy!
By lunch time we had Kit ready to leave and he took off. While I was busy cleaning up in the house and taking care of the other boys, I was vaguely aware that CW hadn't come back inside, but figured he was on to some type of project. Turns out he was!
He built me a new chore wagon in all of about three hours!
He had gotten daddy to cut a piece of plywood with the skill saw before he left for work, and he used that for the bottom.
He then used the scraps from the barn project and manufactured the rest of the pieces he needed.
He used the wheels and handle from the old broken wagon. And completely re-engineered the running and turning assembly that had broken on the old one.
Here is the turning assembly all reconstructed from wood, the backside. The wheels actually rotate and turn just like the old one.
Explaining to mom the intricacies of what he had just done and how he did it and why it works. It was more then my mind could handle! And he was only 10 years old at the time!
Finishing touches. Instead of following the old saying "measure twice cut once", CW prefers the "put it into place and cut off the excess", never mess up that way!
The carpentry tools of the maintenance man.
We used the newly constructed wagon for chores that night, and it worked great, although if we were lacking in muscle at all, this one allowed us to build some, especially when we added a few, full, 5-gallon buckets to it, and hauled it up the small incline to the barn!
We used it for a few weeks until a new metal one could be ordered up and delivered. The boys now use this one to haul the firewood and whatever else they need to haul, and my special milk wagon is left alone!