Tongue Tied (Valentine's Day Special)

Chapter 3: Fixing It Up

Ryder's leadership and organization guided all the pups through the mission as they began the rough cleanup of the shed. With each pup's task being given out and assigned earlier in the briefing room back at base, each member used their unique skills for the most effective parts of getting the structure back together.

Chase and Zuma started setting up a perimeter of the work site and blocked it off with caution tape and traffic cones. Zuma got the tape from Chase's police car, and started making his rounds; wrapping tape around trees and lamp posts and any structure he could find as he made a large circle of the area. Not to far behind him drove Chase, following the water pup's tape path and setting down traffic cones in intervals. With both the tape and cones being set out, the perimeter of the construction/repair site was extra safe and noticeable so anyone outside the crew that might come close would know to avoid the area. Although the ski resort was temporarily closed until repairs were done, there was still the factor of possible hikers that would explore and travel around the mountain and forest, thus making the closed off perimeter all the more important. 

Rubble used his digger and trudged through the snow towards the drifts against the side of the shed. Thanks to his heavy duty treads and large scoop on the front of the rig, he was able to remove decent sized chunks of snow at a time. Rubble started on the front of the building at the door so Rocky could get in and look around; a nice clear path making easy entry. The construction pup then made his way around the left to scoop up the snow drifts as he continued his circle around the structure to remove all the piles.

As the entrance was cleared Rocky made his way to the door of the shed. With some help from Ryder to get the slightly frozen door open, the mixed breed entered inside and assessed the damage. Since the roof had been blown off, Rocky was currently standing in a few inches of snow that covered the floor of the shed, as well as some on the motor and the control panel of the lift. He alerted Ryder of the snow inside that needed removal and then took a look at the motor. 

Skye, Marshall and Everest had all gone around the surrounding area to find the pieces of the roof. With Everest initially unsure of where to help, she wound up with Skye and Marshall and helped immensely. Since Marshall didn't want to drive his firetruck through the snow and risk getting it stuck, he rode with Everest on her snowmobile (which he was very happy about) and helped her and Skye with retrieving pieces of the roof. Luckily, the roof pieces were majority in tact and strong; just a poor connection had caused them to eventually blow off. This made them perfectly suitable for reuse. When the three pups would find a piece, Marshall and Everest would wrap ropes and cables securely around each piece. After that they would hook the ropes either to a cable dangling from Skye's helicopter as she hovered above, or they would attach it to the snowmobile and pull it back across the snow.

Through all this Ryder and Jake had gone back to get a few snow shovels for the snow inside the roofless building. While in the lodge, Jake also picked up some portable heaters to warm up the inside of the building as they worked. With everything loaded up on the Ryder's snowmobile, the two quickly returned back to the shed as the pups continued their tasks. 

"How's it going, Rocky dude?" asked Jake as he and Ryder entered the shack with the heaters and snow shovels in hand. 

"Not bad," answered Rocky, "There's more snow in here than I thought but not awful. The motor has a thick layer of ice on it, so we'll need to hack through it with some tools. Luckily the control panel stayed out of the direct wind over there, so I'm looking inside to make sure nothing got broken." 

Ryder gave the recycling pup a high five (or paw) with his free hand. "Excellent work Rocky. Jake and I will get to shoveling this snow out of here while you do your thing. Rubble is close to getting the drifts outside removed from the walls, so when he's done we can have him use his jackhammer to break that ice on the motor." Rocky yipped with excitement as all three of them heard Rubble's digger trudging and shoveling outside the shed.