Kansas

    How many Kansans does it take to change a light bulb?

    One, but please don’t tell OSHA.  That’s a stairway spanned by three 2X4’s bearing a piece of ¾ inch plywood and a folding step stool.  Next time, it may take two to change this light bulb.. 

    The  one-inch ledge on the left, abutted by a 2X12 plate, now only ¼ of an inch, is all prettied up with a piece of sheetrock and three layers of joint compound.  Now the difficult part, feathering out the edges of the goop so they don’t stand out like acne on the Mona Lisa.  It will probably take an OSHA approved adjustable leg ladder to change the bulb from here on out.

    Firewood time has rolled around again.  Time to descend into the neighbor’s un-Kansas-like pasture where century old ash trees abound.

     There are some dead elms, well over 100 years old.  This was a homestead in the late 19^th century.  The wreckage of a “modern” windmill tower (it’s made of steel) hides among a renegade growth of elms.

      I can hardly imagine getting in and out of this gulley (drainage, draw, whatever you want to call it) with a wagon and team of horses.  It won’t be politically correct to say the homesteaders were hard headed Scotsmen, who eventually had to give up.  It was the second generation that got soft and left to pursue less arduous ways of making a living.  The 1930’s probably made that decision “easier”.

  

   Until 30 years ago, there was water in the creek.  A spring still keeps this pool alive.  If you ignore the old truck, and during recesses for the buzzing chainsaw, you can imagine yourself taking a trip back 150 years in time.  Imagine trying to carve out a living among the rocks and the “soapweed”. 

    The truck slowly fills and late afternoon approaches.  Time to lug the harvest from picking over the bones of the ancient ash trees up the hill. 

    Plenty of sunlight left to stack the wood by.

       Well, back to 2013.  November already.  Don’t forget to set your clocks back.