Post by PG on Oct 2, 2004 9:09:27 GMT -5
I'm awakened this morning by the sound of Canadian geese in front of the house. When I look out the front window they are swimming in small circles - making their loud "quaking" type noise - not the honking for which they are renowned. They seem agitated, and it reminds me, once again, I need to know more about what geese think.
The moon stands a quarter high in the western dawn sky, the breeze rippling the white pines - out of the west, and most of the sky is clear with only some few clouds on the western horizon. To the south, I see a red cloud, a bad sign for the day's weather, yet I can't believe it will be a bad day.
It occurs to me that when I worked outside every day I would have known what the weather would do, but the last 20 years of working mostly inside has drawn me away from the natural world and dulled my senses to what the day will bring.
It's 6:30 AM, Tuesday, the 30th of September. I go out and pick the tomatoes which have ripened in the last day and eat a couple, which sweetened, with coffee on the side, are my breakfast. I'm amazed, once again by the taste difference between what comes from my garden and what I buy at the grocery.
I need to be out the door as soon as I can. I've been over at papa's helping him sort through things as he prepares to sell the house. We've taken care of most of the things in the house, though the final push will come in the last days of October. We are sorting through everything in the barn right now. Incredibly, I've found it more wrenching than going through the items in the house. Papa, a child of the great depression, and never able to truely reject the lessons learned in a childhood of poverty, has saved every item he thought might be remotely useful. Even now, as we go though boards, pipe fittings, angle iron, and old tools, he struggles to find a use for them. I find my pickup bed filled with things I will later need to throw away. I'm afflicted with his hoarder's disease as well. Things which have been a part of my life since birth will be headed for other hands. Building materials which have always had some potential will, now, never be realized. A certain safety net (Papa has never been stingy in sharing his well organized stock of hoarded inventory with his offspring) is being sundered.
He tells me I really need to take this sink faucet. The laundry sink in my basement drips, he says. I look at the faucet, new in the box, and have to admit he is right. I wonder where he got it, and why it was never used. He doesn't remember.
I look at the wooden hay rakes, stored in the hay mow, tied neatly to the rafters. Both are missing tines. I think to myself, "If I replaced the missing ones on one of them with tines from the other, I'll have a good rake. I shake my head. I have no hay to rake, and no place to store the rake if I did need it - which I don't. Yet I'm loathe to see them go. They remind me of my childhood and they've been there - ready for service - all my life.
Old barn guns, broken paddles, kegs and barrels hold momentary interest - and memories.
Smelt seins line the rafters as well. I hold a long debate with myself. Though I haven't smelted in three years, I wonder if I shouldn't hang on to them. In the end, I decide I will borrow a sein, just as I did last time, should I need one again. I have no place to store them.
In the end, I come away with three clear 10 inch by 12 foot ash boards, Old seat belts, cut from their vehicles for canoe seating years ago, three pieces of tin roofing (for the wood shed roof), some steel round stock (for smithing), copper wire, three old two man cross cut saws, and two more Duluth packs papa had stored in some out of the way place.
We cut up the frames, tansmissions and third members from an old Diamond-T truck and a military 6X6. Why papa has them - and has hung on to them - I'm not quite sure. We load them on a trailer made from an old pickup bed and tow them out toward the driveway. On the way, the tractor gets stuck in a low area. The trailer is very heavy and I figure it is hopeless and we will have to unload the trailer. Papa isn't so sure and I grin as I watch him perform another can-do miracle of the type for which he is well known. We get under the trailer with the 20 ton jack and get a board under the wheel which is up against a stump root. We chain the 1936 John Deere to the 1940s Avery tractor which has been the primary tow. I run the John Deere, and when I let out the clutch the front end comes off the ground. Papa, on the Avery yells something, thinking, no doubt, of the two young boys we knew when I was young, who were crushed by John Deeres landing on them in similar circumstances. In Papa's mind, I'm still just such a boy - till in need of guidence, and his concern is evident in his face as I glance back. As I'm in my 50s now, his concern is misplaced. I ease back on the clutch, then engage it again, repeating this sequence, until the rear wheels grab, the front end comes down, and we begin to move forward.
In the driveway we hook the trailer to papa's small pickup and haul the scrud to the wrecking yard in Duluth. Going down the hill into the city, papa keeps the truck in low gear and worries about the cars piling up behind us. He pulls over frequently to let them go by. "They are busy going somewhere," he says, "and don't deserve to be held up." I'm much more concerned about our heavy load and welcome each respite as a chance for the brakes to cool down. We reach the scrud yard and I'm not surprised when the scale man tells us our load was 3600 pounds. Papa gets $72.00 and his quiet satisfaction at turning a liability into an asset is evidence by his smile. We head back for another load.
Copyright Pirre Girard 2004
