Phenology Report

I was lighting a controlled burn in my back lot when it began to snow. Perfect timing! I wanted to reduce the volume of a pile of limbs and brush without any drama. A fire “escaping” is drama (and the reason why don’t “play with fire” conflicts with the excellent utility of fire as a management tool). Snow eliminated even the tiniest hint of a shadow of risk.

I’d trudged through knee deep show to get there and the perimeter of the fire was a good foot deep for 100′ in all directions. Even without the cooperating snowfall (the weather report was right!), I’m pretty sure it would contain a nuclear meltdown, much less a brushpile with 9′ flame lengths at its peak.

It was fast and simple. A few hours sitting in a lawn chair (in snow so deep that the butt of the chair was touching snow) and that was that. Unlike a summer fire that’ll burn everything to ash, edge to edge, this one consumed most of the light fuels and the pile’s core but left me with a snow-covered donut of old logs and such. Fine with me. Someday, when I have time, I’ll shove it all into the center. As the summer progresses, bits and pieces of fallen trees and whatnot will get tossed on. Ideally, next winter the cycle will repeat and I’ll have yet another drama free burn. It’s amazing how much random shit (biomass) accumulates at a homestead in a year.

After that, the next task was to run to the vet and get meds for my dog. My companion, OPSEC enforcer, and blog editor is creaky these days. I hover over it like a helicopter parent. Elderdog is fully retired; dog-emeritus. I lavish attention on it because the clock is ticking. The dog has no idea why it’s the center of attention but relishes it. It also has no idea why I keep opening a rattling bottle and stuffing something in twice daily treats. But it sure loves the treats!

Our veterinary is a large animal vet that does a sideline in small animals. (My huge dog is “small” only compared to cattle.) There’s one thing you need to know about agricultural veterinarians; they haven’t got time for bullshit. They are used to vaccinating 50 cows with an assembly line mentality that would make Henry Ford smile. Picture the “soup Nazi” and you’re getting the idea. No time to talk, when there’s shit to do. She is good but as prickly as a cactus.

“Hi this is Curmudgeon, I need dog meds.”

“Fine, I’ve got ‘em in stock.”

“I’ll come by and pick ‘em up right now.”

“If you do, my husband will punch you in the head.”

So, that was a surprise. Folks, you’re a smart crowd, can you guess what the hell that was about? I was baffled. The dog can go an afternoon without drugs, so I compromised:

“OK. Tomorrow then?” I was thinking I would pick them up around lunchtime.

“Early. Don’t be late.”

This too was a surprise. The veterinarian just leaves the drugs on the counter; you walk in, pick up your drugs (among the several that are set out), cut a check, and leave the check behind. I pick up dog medication roughly once a month and I don’t think I’ve seen her in person for at least a year. What the hell was this “show up early” stuff?

Prickly country people sometimes take a little chatting to get to the heart of the matter. What it boiled down to was that their driveway was a sea of mud. Her husband had just dragged the driveway flat with his old tractor. So, if I showed up and drove my truck to their house (which is also the veterinarian’s office) I would chew the hell out of the driveway. I had to arrive in the morning, when the mud would be frozen. I’m glad she explained that because I had no intention of showing up until lunch at which time her driveway, like mine, would be goo.

The next morning, I was there at the crack of dawn. The driveway is very long, and not particularly well engineered. It was also gorgeous; recently dragged flat like a tabletop! I gingerly drove down the driveway, which was solid as only ice can be. It was perfect until I got to the end where it went up a slight hill. Right there, the drainage was awful, and there was too much water for the whole thing to freeze up.

I felt my front tires sink deep into mud the consistency of oatmeal. There were no other options. I engaged 4×4 and floored it. I barely made it.

I got to the veterinarian’s office having left 100-foot rooster tail of flying mud and tire ruts somewhere between nine and 12 inches deep. I was terrified! There are only so many skilled laborers where I live. The veterinarian knows her shit, it would not do to piss her off.

Luckily, no one was home! I grabbed the meds I needed, cut a check, and practically ran to get back in my truck before I was seen.

Too late! The veterinarian was nowhere to be found but her husband was there. Shit!

This is where the story takes a twist. The veterinarian is a grumpy individual. It turns out her husband, who I had never met, is the sweetest old farmer in the world. Wow!

He had come out to make sure I made it up the muddy path. I presume he is retired, because he had all the time of the world to talk. He chatted my ear off about road drainage, his old tractor, how we set the drag chains on his tractor, the weather, hunting prospects for this fall, traction on various kinds of trucks, and (oddly) the price of propane. I was worried I would piss him off by wrecking his driveway but I think he was delighted to have the opportunity to drag it flat again.

Go figure.

Back at my house, the sun had come up. Our driveway had turned from ice to sludge. That’s why God made 4×4. Gleefully, I tore ruts clear down the whole thing. Why not? It’s my driveway and I’ll nuke it if I want to. A few months from now I’ll drag it flat if/when I can start my tractor.

It occurs to me that folks may not realize the situation with rural driveways. Don’t think of a suburban driveway that’s paved, sloped, and goes 50 feet from a garage door to a paved road. Think of ill funded privately-owned roads. They’re, randomly engineered, dirt tracks that go anywhere from a hundred yards to a half mile through God knows where. Most were built entirely based on where the bulldozer went when somebody decided to build a house several decades ago. Many are based on where it was convenient to ride a horse and wagon a century ago. It’s not unusual to see them veer around rocks that are too big to move by hand, or zig zag around a tree that the owner preserved or a stump from a tree that died 30 years ago. A few driveways are beautifully sloped, have lots of gravel, and excellent drainage but those are rare. The veterinarian’s house is brand new but her driveway is just clay from where someone scraped the topsoil off last year when they threw up the house. In fact, parts of it are slightly below grade… making it a clay bottomed ditch. It’s also shaded by trees so, it won’t dry out for months. That’s probably why she married a nice gentleman with a running if rusty 1960’s era tractor.

After I got home it started to snow again. Mrs. Curmudgeon was livid. Glaring out the window as if to vaporize each snowflake with a ray of hatred. I get it. We’re all tired of winter. I gave my dog a pill and ran for cover.

And that’s the phenology report as winter grudgingly yields to mud season.