Construction Work

When Lyle told me that he and his brother--just the two of them--would be raising a 400-pound beam on Saturday, I was completely baffled as to how they would achieve such a goal. He tried to explain it to me, but I'm a visual learner and just couldn't comprehend how such a thing would work. He invited me to come watch.

Here's the beam positioned on the floor with the pulley system on one end. The challenge was that they only had pulleys for one end of it...
...so they raised it a few feet at a time, one side at a time.
Here it is braced in place, about half-way up.
Lyle was stabilizing it while his brother went to get something...
...and I couldn't resist the opportunity to get a cute Kilroy was Here shot!
As the beam went higher, they discovered that an extra set of hands came in... uh, handy!
I was practically holding my breath the whole time, and praying that the beam wouldn't slip and hurt someone.
This picture makes me look really strong, doesn't it? Nope. I was just bracing it after it got too high for my daughter to reach.
Finally! It took about 2 hours, but they did manage to get the beam installed.
I praised the men for their ingenuity and resourcefulness. My daughter flat out told them she thought they were crazy!

Maybe a little of both?