Day Three - The Ball Must Roll

The Spring goats start the day playing their favorite game - king of the hill. Getting to see this is a good reason to take a walk in the mornings.

Work begins quickly as the teams (consisting of constantly shifting members) get to work. The elevator presents new and shifting challenges as it takes shape.

Althea takes to a tree to move the uphill end of the zip-line for what will turn out to be just one of nearly a dozen places that are tried.

The support for the elevator reaches further and further out from the barn railing, somewhere out there is the solution to the problem of lifting a bowling ball up to head height.

Althea heads up another tree to move the uphill attachment point.

And from that attachment point, the line clears the garden fences easily.

The blue bowling ball is loading into the sling for a test of the new line angle.

The angle turns out to be good, but the line droops under the load of the ball and the sling hits the fence - dropping the ball into the bramble on the uphill side of the garden fence. Mica proves up to the task of retrieving the ball.

Rhody and Gil are working on the transition from the funicular section to the elevator section.

Meanwhile, up by the ranch house, the aerial rail system has been dismantled and is now being redesigned. The new plan is to take advantage of some of the trees (each of which has, at some point in the past two days, been the anchor for the zip-line section) and run the rail along the side of the road.

Serena uses her telekinesis to keep the ball in the rail.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Kip at play.

Gabriel and Serena become well acquainted with the ratchet mechanism on the big compression strap.

Some major decisions have been made on the elevator and a new wave of progress is made.

Mica works on her core strength has she leans way out and drives in the screws that hold one of the heavy-duty pulleys.

The funicular will roll up the road, then up the ramp, bump into the end, and dump the ball onto the v-rail - at least that's the theory. Now if only we had a funicular.

Snack break with Stan in Barn One.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Elijah at the Barn

Nikki often rides the line between serious design discussion and silly nonsequitor.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Mica Fights Off the Paparazzi

Portrait of a Collaborator: Stan at Work

Yes, even the bathroom rail had to be tried in the ever-more desperate search for the right pair of anchors for the zip-line section.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Glynn in Safety Gear

Resetting the pulley for the zip-line.

Chane and Althea soon discover that almost clearing the gate post is no better than not clearing the gate post at all. The line gets taken down and moved again.

And, when you need a break, there is always a goat that is happy to see you.

Or one that is happy to be sleeping in a patch of sun.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Nikki, Patron Saint of the Persistent

With Althea visiting the Elevator team, Serena scrambles up the tree to set the new uphill anchor position on the zip-line section.

Where another person might just stare off into space when they didn't quite know what to do next, Gil carves a tiny bow and arrow.

Later, we discover that he is not immune to the charms of three-day old baby goat.

Then, when it seems almost impossible, the elevator catches a rolling ball and delivers it to the goal spot five feet higher.

And the zip-line clears all obstacles and delivers the ball to the funicular loading area - if only we had a funicular.

Glynn and Gil re-tune the elevator delivery ramp.

And then this happened.

"Is that a prototype of a guide rail?" asked Gever. "Uh, yeah," said the young tinkerer, "it's a prototype - that we're going to keep using."

It's possible that Gever does not quite approve of the proposed solution.

You know it's a great day when it counts as progress that a bowling ball has ker-splatted into a muddy ditch.