[First, a complaint. I tried to write a post earlier. Sadly, it veered into politics. Regardless of good intentions, my post went off the rails. It’s not my fault. Nor is it your fault. Current politics is a black hole of mental ruin and we didn’t do it.
It’s impossible to wisely consider what is reason free. Are we to discuss adult things, like stoic philosophy or the calculus of economy, in a world of hyperventilating toddlers? The clownworld ass-rodeo of current politics is decrepit, debased, degraded, demented, corrupt, and weird. It behaves in blindingly illogical ways. It’s so extreme that it’s hard to assemble words to address the true form of the world.
I wish to ponder in depth, not merely point and shriek. Yet politics is shielded by walls of emotional incontinence. A tsunami of childlike thinking leaves no room for adults. I’m rendered (temporarily) speechless. It’s amazing really! I have a decent imagination, I ought to be able to bridge the gap between the unicorn dipshits and the solid earth. Fer crissake, I write about talking squirrels with disco based mind control! Yet I can’t do it. The unreality event horizon that is politics in 2024 (or if you will 2020 part 4) cannot be breached.
I drafted a post. I deep sixed it. I tried again. It too was inadequate. Rationality in an irrational environment is elusive.
Finally, I gave up. I wrote this post about tractors and snowplows. What can I say? If you gaze long into an abyss of dipshits, the abyss of dipshits will gaze into you.]
I live in East Bumfuk nowhere. The local supply of goods and services is scant. We all need snow removal but it’s not like there’s a “dial 1-800-plowsno or www.clearmydriveway.com” solution. I meet people who cannot believe there are places like this. I assure you it’s true.
Over the years I’ve tried everything. The obvious solution was hiring guys with trucks. My favorite was a big green truck with a utility box. Sometimes the guy showed up, sometimes he didn’t. One winter the same truck showed up but with a different driver every time. One time the truck showed up when there was the merest dusting of snow. I think the driver desperately needed alimony money. I’d dealt with his ex-wife and know why he got divorced! I paid in full even though I didn’t need a plow. This one time had no bearing on whether he would show up the next snowfall (even if summoned by phone). I assume some sort of clan used the plow truck as a sort of “communal property”? Possibly, whoever actually got out of bed that day got to use it. Who knows who maintained it or registered it? I wonder if it was insured? The last time I saw it, the truck was driven by someone’s grandpa. (I think the proximate owner was in jail.) After that, I never saw the truck again. I assume it no longer ran. Nobody answered the phone anymore. As far as I know, the truck and the clan that collectively owned it, just disappeared.
Trying a different approach, I bought a snowblower. I beat it to death. It was a good machine but I forced it into a job 10 times what any sane person would do with a snowthrower. I did get a lot of exercise.
Another time I hired a guy with a bitchin huge UTV. I think he was trying to justify the fancy toy to his wife? He did a good job but had no heat and was shivering every time I saw him. He lasted a winter and then disappeared.
For a few years I used my 60 year old antique tractor. Like the UTV guy I nearly froze to death. Being an antique, the tractor started or didn’t start based on a roll of the dice. I reverted to my ATV, which always started. But trying to clear the driveway with a little 325 cc ATV is like draining the ocean with a teaspoon. It was even colder than the antique tractor too.
I found another truck guy and he was a solid worker. Sadly, I watched him beat a good new truck to absolute smithereens in one season. I don’t know how much he earned pushing snow, but I know trucks ain’t cheap. He vanished too. I hope he managed to pay off his wreckage on wheels.
One winter, I got bronchitis. You never know what causes such things but freezing my ass off battling snow didn’t help. It was time to stop fiddle-farting around. I gave up on a core value and financed a heated cab with a tractor under it. I paid extra for the snowbucket. It was a game changer. The payments are brutal but the heat is a big deal. My problem is solved.
I still see plow trucks come and go. It’s a cycle. They last a few years slowly getting battered to death, then someone somewhere else buys a shiny new truck or perhaps resurrects a different heap. I’ve seen the same blade mounted on different generations of truck too. On a harsh winter plow guys clean up, on a mild winter they barely get by. A heap might limp for years or die in a week. One blown transmission on a new truck eats the season’s earnings.
Meanwhile, I plow my own driveway. It’s convenient to have my own equipment and tractors seem generally tougher than trucks. It’s still work but it’s not miserably cold.
This winter I haven’t had any big blizzards. I’m not complaining! Sometimes it snows so constantly that you need to plow 3 or 4 times in one week. Even with a good tractor, each effort takes anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple hours. I have a “day job” and a blizzard consumes all of my “spare time” until the weather shifts.
My tractor is several years old now. I’m still freaked out I bought a thing that expensive but it’s “broke in” enough that I don’t get it serviced at the stealership. I begged a friendly neighborhood mechanic to do an oil change and he did a fine job. While he was swapping the oil, I was drinking his garage beer and sitting on his garage couch. Good service and free beer! What more could a man want?
His garage is a bit of a gathering place. The bar from Cheers was never so welcoming. While I drank, a bunch of fellows showed up. One of many topics was snowplowing. This year’s mild weather means every dollar invested in a plow truck is “wasted” (same could be said of my tractor). This devolved into talking shit about every brand. Chevies are gay. Fords fall apart. Dodges have an unstable front end like Dolly Parton. The usual.
Plowing is hard. Trucks have more complex steering geometry every year. They’re not built to be used as bulldozers. They do it of course, but the delicate balance between paying too much to buy a new one and servicing a dying old one is a knife edge. A winter without blizzards throws a monkey wrench into the whole profit / loss calculations.
Blue city dweebs shit on rural people as clueless rubes. They’re utterly wrong! An urban dweller may bitch about municipal services while wearing pajamas but what has he actually done? Rednecks “invest” unknowable maintenance to gain unpredictable returns using machines of uncertain lifespan. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. But they definitely play the game.
My tractor does the job so well I sort of forgot the annual struggle to hire a plow guy. I think one guy (let’s call him Frank) is the main resource. The rumor was that Frank said he’d be “in it” as long as his Ford held up, and then he was “moving the fuck out”. He’s earned his retirement. Think about it, for a rural man bitching about municipal services rather than carrying on the fight is “relaxation” while for an urban man that’s the whole battle. I wish Frank well.
When Frank packs his shit and bails, nobody knows who’ll be the next plow guy. With three beers in my gut and a forth in my hand. I had an idea. I looked at my tractor, still dripping oil from the drainplug. Why not?
It’s more or less ready for that job. To become “tractor plow guy” I’d need two upgrades; a flashing light on the roof so I don’t get clobbered on the road and a radio to kill the boredom. Beyond that? Time.
Right now I don’t have time. Day job and all that. But the future is uncertain. A few years ago I was almost fired over a vaccine that doesn’t provide immunity. Given the mess that is this election season, what comes next? In a world where Texas and the Feds are inches from playing Fort Sumter part 2, who among us knows what the future holds. Frank’s Ford might outlast the union. Anything could happen. But it will always snow.
I decided to prep the tractor as a “backup”. I certainly wouldn’t buy a tractor trying to make a profit, but if I already have it… why not? Maybe in a few years Frank will be bitching about the heat in Florida? Maybe at the same time I’ll be free enough to put in 50 hours a week during blizzards? It could happen.
I haven’t purchased flashing lights yet but I did purchase a radio. I bought the radio specifically wired to “plug and play” with my tractor’s cab (which is pre-wired with a specific plug). Amazon charged about ¼ of what the dealer wanted. I have a Kioti. If I had a Massey-Ferguson or a Kubota or any brand I could probably order the same radio with that brand’s plug installed. The sole exception might be John Deere. (John Deere is the driving force behind “right to repair” lawsuits and legislation. Like Apple, they’re nice products with built in anti-competitive proprietary structures. On a green machine who knows if a simple radio swap would require firmware only the dealer can access? John Deere is also like Apple in that it seems to cost about double what you’d pay for an equivalent “off brand”.)
The radio took a while to arrive. I assume the plug was installed “as ordered”? I’ll probably for the summer before I open the dash and add the radio.
This whole “vignette” got me to thinking about resilience. Getting snow plowed is a bitch but Frank has things covered for now. Half a dozen rednecks with half a dozen trucks in half a dozen various conditions might take up the torch when he leaves. Or maybe another fancy UTV will emerge. Or maybe yours truly will throw his hat in the ring. Whether it’s worth it to me (or anyone else) depends on things like inflation and diesel prices. No city bureaucracy can be as flexible (or colorful) as the local people. It seems like chaos but it becomes a form of resiliency.