Vague Events In Succession: Part 1

[Grief makes you dumb. I’m hopelessly distracted. I lack whatever wit I once had. Hopefully it’ll return of it’s own initiative. Presumably it’ll do so at the appropriate time. Is it not a blessing for keen awareness to vanish precisely when hard edges of life cut too deep? On a lighter note, stumbling around in a fog is a whimsical experience. Is this is what life is always like for stoners and dumbasses?]

I ended my last post with a tractor abandoned at the edge of my lawn. (Don’t think of my “lawn” as the uniform manicured cartesian plain of the suburbs. Think “clearing” or “fire break” or “a place serially managed lest it become a forest”.) My half assed attempt at mowing collapsed at a cognitive/spiritual limit. I’d wandered off looking for butterflies. (Literally!) When that failed I walked away and got my first good night’s sleep in a month. It’s funny when I say it like that, but it is what it is.

When “the thinker ain’t working” I’m a stranger to my own life. Mowing the lawn should be a zombie level occupation. But I do things in a way that assumes I’m “on the ball”. (It has to be that way. My barely-tamed lawn literally killed a “point and ride” lawn tractor.) I run a 6′ finish mower from the 3 point hitch on a 35 HP tractor. It’s not rocket science but you can do a lot of damage if you “zone out”. Beyond the obvious risk (like wrapping yourself around the PTO) there’s plenty of hazard just driving the machine. I’d already “whanged” the garage door frame with the protruding bucket loader. Whoops.

So I elected to stay away from complex machinery. I did the simplest task I could think of; I stacked firewood. It was a wise decision that brought a small measure of peace. All work, no matter how simple, has a quiet dignity; provided it’s actually necessary. Firewood is the very heart of necessary!

Stacking firewood is one thing but processing it is another. I stayed away from my chainsaw! Touch that when you’re half aware and you’ll die. The physics problem of directional control while felling a five ton tree is closer to a chess match than a matter of brawn. “AC,” I lectured myself, “the saw is out of your league for now.” I stacked pre-cut wood and then bravely expanded to splitting it too. My 27 ton hydraulic splitter will rip your arm off as easily as a saw, but it’s not fast or unpredictable. Nothing bad happened.

I ran the splitter until the the tank ran dry. I’d like to say I remembered my plans to service the splitter but that’s not true. I’d tied a bag of parts to the gas can I usually use to fill it. Did past AC know that current AC would be on autopilot? I swapped a broke fuel line valve, put in a new spark plug, changed the oil, and replaced the air filter. As far as I can tell this all happened through muscle memory. I simply don’t remember doing it.

I split and stacked some more wood. Splitting wood creates a pile of “unusable” wood scraps beneath the hydraulic ram. This builds up. You have to manage it somehow (the best way is to split firewood at the stump instead of at the woodshed but I’m not doing that this year).

I drove the tractor to the pile, raked the “split detritus” into the bucket, drove to a random area of my lawn that was actually mowed (thus not a “spreading fire” hazard), dumped the bucket, and touched it off.

I shut down the tractor right there and procured a lawn chair. I sat there watching the fire for hours. What my homestead lacks in creature comforts it makes up for in peace. It was dead quiet and stress free.

Mrs. Curmudgeon, who cares deeply for her currently depressed husband, showed up with the fixings for a kabob. Nice! I positioned a few cement blocks and tossed on a metal grate. The food was good. The company appreciated. Also our dog decided fire grilled chicken was the best thing ever. If you have a dog why would you ever watch TV?

Oddly I missed my chickens. There are no chickens (free range or otherwise) at my homestead this year. Usually I have a couple dozen hens wandering about and if they think you’ve got food they’ll swing by to investigate.

I laugh to myself that I started a little campfire. I was deliberately trying to avoid “dangerous things” yet wound up playing with hydraulic rams and fire. How goofy is that? I suspect rural lives just have more sharp edges than other venues.

As the sun set I put out the fire and packed away the lawn chairs. I went to start the tractor and it was kaput! Dammit! No idea why. Not willing to diagnose it in the dark I left it there.

I’d like to say I got another good night’s sleep but we had a plumbing event at 3:00 am. Another dammit! Have I always handled so many “unexpected events”? It seems so weird.

Luckily I’d prepared for such an event years ago. I turned off valves I’d installed for just such a purpose and without fixing a damn thing went right back to bed.

The story continues…