Chrome Legs

      Axe handle.  That’s how Dad measured women’s behinds.  Well, big women.  I never heard him mention half an axe handle or a third of an axe handle.

    But I heard him mention that some woman was at least two axe handles across the beam, many a time.  This is the story of a lady who shall remain nameless because she measured in excess of an axe handle.

    I was preschool when the folks hired a neighbor girl to help with kids and household chores.  As I recollect, she was on duty when the youngest sibling was born.  She spent the night at our house at least that once.  She was probably a high school girl at the time.

     She indulged us some.  I remember once when she panicked and jammed us all up the stairs and into bed because headlights turned into and started down the lane.  It had to be the folks coming home earlier than expected and we were up beyond our assigned bed time.  We hit the beds and held our peace.  She would make trouble for us if we made trouble for her.  She usually let us stay up later than we were supposed to.

     This event occurred while she was serving as housekeeping help.  She was washing the window in the single tiny bathroom when it happened. 

    To get to the window, you either stand in or on the bathtub.  She was standing on the bathtub. It was the same bathtub I stood on once, well many times, actually.  But once, Mother had cleaned that tub.  We were playing outside and it was damp, muddy maybe.  I got thirsty so in I came.  No time to remove shoes.  I had to climb up on the tub rim to reach the communal drinking glass, which I did, got my drink, and back outside.

     Well, it wasn’t very long before we all got a summons, the tone of which meant no dawdling.  Each one of us was marched in one at a time and made to look at the muddy mess on the tub rim that had just been cleaned that day.  I was third in line.  When my turn came, I was gripped firmly by the back of the neck, led swiftly and surely across the kitchen and into the bathroom.  There my neck was maneuvered so that I had to look at the tub.  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?  For some reason, I kept my mouth shut.  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?

    I don’t remember any other consequences.  Perhaps I was a little more careful about “tracking in” stuff for awhile.     

      So there the girl stood on the tub washing the window.  The door had to be mostly shut for her to have room to step up onto the tub.  If the door were open, she couldn’t get between door edge and the lavatory.

     I see the scene from the kitchen in my memory.  I couldn’t have seen much, but I saw her back down.  Then a bunch of things happened all at once.  There was a crunch, a shocked shout, water hitting the floor and a dance as the girl came out of the bathroom to holler for help.

    The part of her that exceeded an axe handle had caught the front corner of the wall hung lavatory when she stepped down off the tub.  The force was so great it pulled the lavatory off the wall.  One of the two water supply tubes broke and water was running everywhere.

     I don’t remember a lot of things beyond that.  Someone had to go downstairs and shut the water off.  I don’t remember Dad remounting the sink or replacing water pipes.  But it got done.  I can only imagine the hired girl’s embarrassment, she, hired to help out, had caused even more work for her employers. 

    What I do remember is that one day in the mail came a long narrow package, probably from Montgomery Wards, maybe Sears.  Soon there were two chrome legs supporting the front of the lavatory.  That thing was not going to get knocked off the wall again. 

     I’m happy to report those legs worked.  The lavatory hasn’t been off the wall since.

    I decided to clean the carpet in the bathroom.  Taking the legs out facilitated things.  They had a little rust on them.  They’ve been there over fifty years.  Please don’t tell the Goodwife.  She’ll be thinking we need to update or remodel or something.

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May?

     The calendar says May.  The furnace doesn’t get it.  Mother Nature iced the landscape to honor all the mothers.

 

    Somewhere under the white is a lonely tomato plant.  I was reminded that it was out there when the neighbor kid was out in his backyard in shorts and hoody putting baskets and buckets and barrels over plants. 

    I clumped out into the backyard in my farmer buckle overboots to nestle a jug of water next to the tomato plant.  I put a card board box over the pair.

      It was snowing and the wind had come up.  The old blue tarp was handy, so I threw it over the box.  The aspen branch was even handier and promised to defeat the wind’s attempts to huff and puff and blow away the flimsy shelter.   

     The Local Conditions site says the low was 30 degrees.  They are calling for mid-twenties tonight, so guess the tomato will stay housed for awhile. 

    Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . .  By Friday morning, the rain gauge registered nearly an inch and a half for the week.  I have yet to check the gauge for the weekend results. 

     Local Conditions report a low of 26 with the projection of mid-twenties again tonight.  Only time will tell if the wheat can weather those lows at this stage of development.  Moisture is no longer a problem, anyway.

     The old Ford tractor underwent a delving into its bowels.  The three point hitch arms have never responded correctly to the depth gauge / lift lever.  The lift arms are supposed to correspond to the position of the control lever.  If the lever is halfway up, the arms should be half way up, and stay there.

     It has never worked that way.  Keeping the mower at the right height is a constant worrying of the control lever.  Sometimes the mower blades will be digging the dirt.  Other times, the mower deck will be raised so high it will be hitting the rear tractor tires, all with the same setting on the control lever.

      According to “the book” those problems can all be fixed by replacing gaskets and rings and the pressure relief valve.  So apart it came. 

 

     Here’s what the hydraulic system looks like, just in case you wanted to know.  It’s amazing how simple it is.  It’s all right under the seat.

 

     It’s also amazing that you can still find parts for the old feller.  The place I called had the gasket set in stock.  The rings and the valve are still available but had to be ordered.  Parts should all be in this week.

    Then the usual $64,000 question:  will I get it back together and working right?  (Any idiot can tear something apart.  It takes a mechanic to get it back together.)

    The wet weather gives me a little time to get it done.  But when the sun comes out and it warms up, tractor and mower will be in high demand.

               

      

Mayday

   Or Guardian Angel to the Rescue.

    The day began inauspiciously enough.  The bread supply was depleted yesterday at lunch.  No toast for breakfast.  Oh well, let them eat Bisquick. 

     From Marie Antoinette, it went to Old Mother Hubbard.  Only ¾ cup of Bisquick in the container.  That will hardly make one biscuit, let alone a pancake.  No worry, a whole new box resides on the shelf downstairs.  Except, there was none.  Hmmm, I don’t remember grabbing and opening that box.  It wasn’t there.  I looked again.

    Now what?  One shouldn’t have to contemplate such things at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday.

     It takes too much time to make bread.  There were things to do.  Myriad upstart fire weeds and clovers and volunteer wheat were waiting a good turning over at the hands of an old John Deere tractor and an ancient pair of Schaefer oneway disks.  Give them a week and the weeds and the sun will have sapped the moisture and the now-mellow soil will have turned to concrete.  The disks will sing a sordid tune trying to dislodge the rank greenery and the tractor will lay its ears back a little further in the effort to coax along its entourage.

    Corn bread.  Doesn’t take any longer than making biscuits.  That jar was dangerously low, too, but substitute a little more wheat flour and it will work.  No milk, either.  Mix up a little nonfat dry milk and we are in business.     

     By 8:30, the tractor was headed to the field.  When things really want to get under your skin, the tractor starting engine won’t start.  Starting engine won’t start, tractor won’t start, you are doing nothing.

     So it could have been worse, much worse.  We suffered only one minor break-down.  When the seismographers came through, they drove an eight-wheeled semi-articulated locomotive with tractor tread tires about three feet wide.  Every three or four hundred yards, the train would halt and a four foot square mall would drop kerthunk into the earth from the bombay doors beneath one of the segments of the locomotive.

      It was wet when they were doing that.  The tractor-tire imprints have dried into a superb chatter strip, even for a three-and-a-half mile per hour tractor.  The kerthunking square pushed the soil down six-to-eight inches and left a pie crust edge along the perimeter.  The pie crust has also dried.  The oneways did some serious jumping up and down when they crossed the seismoglyph’s path.  When crossing the track perpendicularly, the roughness only lasted a few seconds.

 

    But then came the time when the oneways had to parallel the tracks for over a quarter of a mile.  The macadam road vibration caused the tie rod on the front furrow wheel to fail.  A twenty minute operation got the tie rod back together for now, and a couple of wraps of bailing wire will hold the pieces together to get through this operation.  So the day was successful in the scarcity of mechanical problems.   

     Yesterday, I worked in the field all morning, took a suitable noon break, and returned to the field for the afternoon.  Threatening weather arrived around 3:30.  It didn’t look like much, and it wasn’t.  But by 4:30 I was heading homeward just wet enough to be miserable and the day was done.

     So today I thought, “Aha, I will stay out till about 2 p.m. and then break for lunch.  By three, I will know whether to go back out or not.”

    Two came and things were going good, so I kept going.  Besides, there still wasn’t any bread in the house.  What to eat?  At four, the weather was threatening a bit.  At 4:30, I was again headed for the house.

    I would go to town, do some grocery shopping, and have a bite to eat at the local pub. A quick shower and off to town.  The groceries bought, I parked at the local bar and grill.  There the problem was, a glass with a nice foamy head came before the meal. 

      By the time I was half done eating, the glass was empty.   Would I like another one?  Well, yes.  When the French fries were gone, the glass was still half full.  You can’t waste a $3.75 beer.

    When the glass was empty, I began to have worries about navigating a straight line to exit the premises.  With some help from the table I rose and did get through the door without incident.  Should I be driving?  Maybe I should take a walk, or crawl in and take a nap.

      I took the keys from my pocket, but as I approached the car, I realized my worries, at least the ones about my possible impairment, were over.  There flat on the ground sat my left rear tire. 

    The keys opened the trunk, not the driver’s door.  In the far reaches of the trunk stood the donut, held to the back of the back seat by a huge washer and bigger wing nut.  I could reach the wing nut without crawling into the trunk by putting one hand in the bottom of the trunk and loosening the wing nut with the other hand.  Released from the nut and washer, the donut fell into the trunk and was removed.  The jack and combination jack handle / lug wrench were housed behind the spare tire.  Two more boarder-house reaches and changing the tire can begin.    

     Loosen the lug nuts before lifting the car.  There’s nothing to keep the back wheel from spinning on a front wheel drive car. 

     Where does the jack go?  Ah yes, a little stud just the same size as the hole in the top of the jack plate on the undersill just in front of the tire.  Somehow, the engineers have figured out a way so all of the lug nuts have a lot of friction on the last few threads.  I had to use the blasted wrench to the bitter end of all five lugs.

     The flat off, the donut on, lug nuts snugged, jack lowered enough to keep the donut from spinning, lug nuts torqued, jack and wrench back in the trunk, I was ready for the trip home.  My equilibrium was vastly improved by the fifteen minute exercise.  Nothing like bending over, squatting, or kneeling while straining with a wrench or lifting a tire to drive out a drink that has gone to your head.

      Ask and the answer shall be given.  Show me the way to go home.  Do NOT exceed 45 mph with the spare mounted on the automobile.

Harmony Platoon

    It seemed like a good idea, last January when the days ended at 4 p.m. when it was dark and cold out and the shows on tv were like watching sands through an hour glass.  Add the encouragement of a fellow enthusiast from Kansas who assured me he was going to enlist.  We could get together again in Estes Park.

    It was only $20 and you got four songs, the sheet music and “learning tracks”.  So I sent in my check.  In early February via email, the music arrived.  AND the news from my “friend” that he couldn’t be there, a wedding in Nebraska.

     Well, it might be fun anyway, so I printed off the music and transferred the recorded versions to the MP3.  I could put on the head phones and listen.  I couldn’t sing out loud much, unless I had the house to myself. 

     Folks don’t mind hearing a lead sing his part solo—it’s usually the melody.  The bass can get by because he has the chord roots and maybe a catchy rhythm.  If you hear a baritone singing all alone, you might think he was having a close encounter of a third (or fifth or seventh) kind with another world.

     If you hear a tenor practicing his part, you want to dial 911 and request an ambulance.  The guy has to be in unbearable pain, whining as he is in the troposphere. So I tried to learn my part using my imagination.  I don’t know how many times I might have forgotten myself and sang out loud.  I’m afraid to ask.

     When April got here and I couldn’t sing my part to the four songs without either the music or the MP3, I began to get a little nervous.  A couple of trips to the farm allowed me to howl out loud without disturbing anyone but the bunny rabbits.  They deserve it.

     It took a lot of time, which I had in February, but without a place.  In April I had the place, but there were a lot of other things to do, farm work, tractors to get ready, trees to plant, a grain bin to finish emptying.  None of that got done this week.  It was barbershop week.

     Well, there was a trip to the airport to send the Goodwife off on her tri-monthly visit to check on her mother.  And the regular barbershop meeting (show coming up on May 8),  quite a few errands to run, a trip up the hill to visit the grandson (going to be walking soon), and then it was Friday.

     More than once did I think I should not have devoted all the time to learning tenor part to four songs just to have a good time with a bunch of other guys.  Or was it going to be fun?  Would I be the only one who wasn’t sure he could hold up his part in a quartet.  (Singing in a quartet requires a lot more confidence than singing in a chorus.  In a chorus you can rely on someone else when you forget the words or lose your way.)

     Of course I found many, many guys in the same boat with me.  Most of us toughed it out, but a few violated a cardinal rule of platoon or brigade singing:  no paper music on stage.

     The platoon handlers took playing cards and taped our names to the face.  The cards were placed in four rows, one row for each part, name up.  You turned your card over when you arrived.  After warming up as a group on each of the four songs, the head guy played a game of “brains” or concentration with the turned-over cards.  He drew one card from each row and that was your quartet.

     In the first round each quartet was assigned one of the four songs and had thirty minutes to go practice.  My quartet was assigned “Daydream”  (“what a day for a daydream. . . “).  

     There were eleven quartets in the first round.  Two quartets had to do two songs with different baritones because there were two more baritones than there were guys singing the other three parts—a little bit unusual.  Normally there would be more leads and basses and fewer baritones and even fewer tenors. 

     Two of the four songs were sung twice and two were sung three times by the eleven quartets.  Each quartet gave itself a name.  Your name went into a hat and a panel of judges, who listened to the same songs over and over again, drew out a name.  When your name was drawn, you got up in front of the judges and all the other guys and sang your song.

     The first place quartet in the first round got to sing first (“mike testers”) on the evening show, the college quartet contest.  The winner of the second round sang last after the college contest (“mike coolers” I think).  My first round quartet also sang (as in also ran).  We didn’t win.

    In the second round, my quartet was one that had to do two songs with two different baritones.  So we only had fifteen or twenty minutes to practice each song.  The “Hard Day’s Night” quartet did okay but no medal.  The “Sweet Caroline” quartet nearly crashed and burned because the bass, who has the melody on the verses, couldn’t remember the words.  He started ad libbing and we became a comedy quartet.  We got lots of laughs and applause but no win.

     The third round began Friday afternoon.  We drew for our quartet assignment, but we wouldn’t know what song we would sing until, in front of the judges, when we would draw the song and sing it.  That would be the final round on Saturday morning.  My third round quartet practiced for 45 minutes before the dinner bell sounded.

     Friday ended with the-afore mentioned college quartet contest.  There were other activities, but I had to drive down the hill in the dark, and Saturday was another day.  So I switched gears and listened to the Rockies come from behind and beat the Giants as I descended.

     Saturday morning found the competition reduced by scheduling conflicts.  Some guys had to attend quartet-coaching sessions, some a chorus-coaching session.  Our lead had a class he wanted to attend (it was “Harmony College” after all).  So a guy stepped in to sing lead with us.  There were eight other quartets in this round. 

     When we sang “You’ve Got a Friend”  (from Toy Store), it was for the first time with our new lead.  We tied for first place.

     In the sing-off we chose to sing “Daydream”.  We did fairly well.  The other quartet developed problems in the middle of “Friend” and we were declared the winner.

    The third round winner got to sing on the Saturday night show.  This show featured the chorus and the quartets that were coached Friday and Saturday (quartets registered with the society, not the “pickup” quartets of the Platoon.)

     The coaches were the members of the current senior champion quartet, Saturday Evening Post. There were other coaches, too, one from the Barbershop Harmony Society staff.  The quartets move from room to room where for an hour or so the expert listens to them and helps them improve.  Saturday night, the quartets get to show on stage the improvements they have made.

      Society protocol calls for the best to be last, or the worst first.  Saturday Evening Post ended the Saturday night show in fine fashion.  The coached quartets went through a random draw to see when they sang.

     First on the show was the Platoon chorus made up of the 40 of us who participated.  We began the show with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”, which we did very well as a chorus.  We ended our set with “Sweet Caroline” with the audience’s help on the “Ba, ba, ba’s”.  It was a hit, like most audience participation events.

     In between the two numbers, the third-round-winning quartet, my quartet, sang.  We chose “Daydream” again.  We got to the “time ain’t really on my side” and some of us jumped ahead to “time passes me by a lot” (me? I can’t honestly say).

    We came to a halt, not a spectacular crashing train wreck halt, but a slowly dying out, feebly embarrassed-looking-at-one-another halt.  The audience folk tittered away their embarrassment for us.  We looked at each other.  What to do?

    “Can we start again?” I asked.  “No” said the baritone.  “Start again,” said the lead.  The bass nodded.  Conceding, the baritone pulled out his pitch pipe and sounded the “C” again.

    “Buh doom” went the bass.  “Doo” went the baritone, lead, and tenor.  The train was on the track again.  This time we got there.   We did a pretty good job, too, if I do say so myself.  The audience warmly rewarded us for picking ourselves up and getting back in the race.

     Now for the Paul Harvey “Rest of the Story”.  The panel of judges consisted of VIP’s from the Rocky Mountain district. 

 

       The judges, after having to listen to the same four songs over and over again, try to get even with us by singing US a song.

     Our baritone is a member of the RMD board of directors.     

    Our substitute lead was the guy directing the platoon who came all the way from Las Vegas.  He stepped in to keep things even and still have have nine quartets.

     Might the judges been prejudiced?  Nah.  Anyway, it was fun in the end, train wreck and all.

     My reward for hours and hours of trying to learn four songs, some stress, and two trips up the hill:  a golden trophy cup on a golden chain—all made of plastic.  (What did you expect for a $20 entrance fee?)

    

Shop Project

      Dire predictions of snow and cold failed to materialize—failed miserably.

      It takes an inch of moisture to fill the inner tube.  It’s about two-thirds full.  That is the entire accumulation from the past three days.  While the media ballyhooed the rain, hail, snow, and closed roads near the front range, we struggled to ring out a little over half an inch.

     Here is an appropriate Eastern-Colorado joke.  That time it rained for forty days and forty nights, Karval got an inch and a half.  We are not that far from Karval.

     It was misty, foggy, windy and cold much of that time, so time for an indoor project.  Time to find the top of the shop workbench.  It was there.

 

    (That’s the “after” shot.  I forgot to shoot the “before” picture.)  The ultimate goal was to free up space in the “Orrie” cabinet to house the pesticides and other harmful stuff, where it can be secured against small hands that might go exploring there.  I DID pay attention at the pesticide applicator’s meeting.  (Wash your hands BEFORE going to the bathroom.)

     Actually, I have been wanting to store the chemicals in the cabinet for quite a while.  The meeting renewed my resolve.  Maybe having a one-year old grandson helped, too?

 

     This is the “before” picture of the chemical storage.  To make room for the jugs and bottles, the bottom shelf of the cabinet had to be vacated.  It was full of nails and a few screws.

     The job isn’t quite done.  The cabinet can be closed but not locked.

     I know how an earthworm must feel, taking a bite and moving forward and pooping out the same amount on the other end.  Things get displaced but not eliminated.  That is to say I couldn’t discard much.  The nails had to find a new home.  I know something about hoarding.  (I dasn’t ever tell you how I know.)  Build shelves.

 

      Something else had to go.  Fortunately, a lot of that was good for kindling, and a fire in the old stove felt good.

 

     It’s still a bit crowded, especially with the addition of the Ford tractor, due for a little maintenance.  But I had room to get it in.

  

Spring Drying Out

      Spring is trying to spring, but it needs a little help from Mother Nature.  The mustard that should be shin-to-knee high is trying to blossom about the ankles.

 

    The wheat still looks good, but could certainly use one of those April heavy wet snows.

       The peas are trying to get up.  They would welcome a little moisture.  It may have to come from a hose.

 

    The rose bush is trying to rise above the competition of the lamb’s ear (or whatever that fuzzy plant is).

    Two unnatural events have occurred.  The 830 finally returned to the lineup.  It took some doing.  It did not cackle right off on the first attempt to start it.

     For some reason the fuel system became “unprimed” during the overhaul.  It took some two or three hours to figure out the problem.  When it did start, it had to run for thirty minutes to warm up to operating temperature.  Then the tappet cover and rocker arms had to come off and the head retorqued to 275 foot pounds. The tappets had to be readjusted to .015 inches.  But it all got done and it did start right up this time.

       I had to renew my pesticide applicator’s license.  That is, if I want to be able to play with dangerous and environmentally harmful pesticides, I have to have a private applicator’s license. To that end, I attended a meeting in Anton last January (cost $40). The cost of the license is $75. This year they are putting pictures on the license so it will look like a driver’s license.  They asked that you send your own picture.  So. . . . .

    Will you sleep well tonight knowing such a person is licensed to handle dangerous chemicals?    

   

   

Fire Buggery

    An early spring storm brought rain, hail, sleet and a dab of snow.  When life brings a natural fire suppression system, build a fire.  A pile of branches from the spruce tree felling remained in the front yard.

    

      I was going to move the branch pile, but burning it in place seemed a better option with the current conditions (wet green grass all around, a northwest breeze).

     A courtesy call to the sheriff’s office is now required.  Usually, the dispatcher wants to know your location and maybe how long you expect the burn to take.  This time, the answerer asked what the pile consisted of (tree branches), how big was it (4 X 8 X 3 fee high), what fire district   was I in (Genoa).  Sometimes they ask you to call when you are done, but not this time.

    So gather the necessities: fire extinguisher (hand-held sprayer), old stale gas, pitch fork, and matches.  The “parts washer” had some greasy goo from cleaning tractor parts.  It got cleaned out on top of the pile.  Then splash a little stale gas on the pile and make a short gas trail away from the pile.  Strike the match and drop it on the gas trail as you hastily back up. Sometimes you get a good “whoom” when you drop the match, so be sure to back away.  No need for singed eye brows.

     It didn’t take too long before the pile was reduced to ashes.

      All the excitement was soon over.  I don’t have to move the branch pile.  I kept warm for an hour or so.  What more could a pyromaniac ask for?

     There is another branch pile, but it requires an east wind as well as wet conditions.  There will be another fire someday.  With all the Chinese elm trees on the place, such branch disposal will always be a necessity.

       The excitement over, it was time to return to the 830.  A trip to Neighborly’s fetched a huge gahoona torque wrench.  Two hundred seventy-five pounds was no problem with this fellow.  That is, if you can muster the force.   

 

     The problem was seeing the dial at the same time as I pulled down on the handle.  Neighborly suggested a mirror, and that worked fine.

     Tappets adjusted, covers replaced and it’s time for another exciting event—the first starting of a reassembled engine.  Will it start and run as designed?  Or will there be clunking and oil, coolant and fuel spurting all over?

     That event will have to wait.  It has been a long day.  It has cooled off remarkably.  Time to head for the fire—this one in the stove.