weekend update
2 weekends ago
thurs jan 21, water froze in house, waiting for water guy, thinking intensely while playing mindless solitaire on comp,the batteries in the mouse started crackling like they were pop rocks. took out batteries, and they were still popping like pop rocks but no leakage.hmmmmmmm. thursd nite freezing rain. so, to prepare, i lined the windshields with pizza box's and dog food bags. while scraping ice on my windshield, i tapped the wiper, and it FLEW 8' clear and stuck in the ice snow muck like an iriquois arrow. hmmmmmmmm
( them things can be rather tough to get off, but not this time )
friday morning there was 1/2" of the greasiest, slickest ice known to man. sure was glad i lined the shields. saw two dogs go down repeatedly. never saw that before. hmmmmmm. cars all warmed up, everyones ready to go. my wipers are not working. hmmmmmmmmm. check the fuse,,, third up far right, yeahp, third up, far right is where the fuse was supposed to be, yet, it was NOT there. NOT on the floor either. NOR the driveway. i used the wipers the day before. hmmmmmmmmmm. ( see ? ) ( see also wtf )
friday nite/ date nite with mrs eliot. had a nice time ( hic )
our driveway is rather steep with a bank turn at the steepest apex. our friends have learned, at certain times, to just park at the bottom and walk up. this driveway takes a certain amount of speed, and the most assured intent of I WILL NOT FAIL. i knew there was still ice on the driveway of certain death, but,,,,,,, well, i put down about 3 double capt morgan, with a couple of beers, so it was only natural for me to think i could MAKE it up the driveway of certain death in spite of the greasy glassed slick. that was the SECOND time in my life were i was wrong. ( the first time, i THOUGHT i was wrong ) reality re-entered my life suddenly,, as soon as the tires made that high speed spin sound, and trajectory was lost. hmmmmmmmmmm. quickly checking the rearview brought the realization that mrs eliot THOUGHT she could follow me up the driveway of definite doom ( i could see her headlights ) naturally, the first thing that came to my mind was
FAARRK!
i was sliding back and picking up speed quick.
my second thought was calling my ins. agent while visions of mangledness played in my head. mrs eliot both impressed and amazed me with here navy seal like driving accumen, cause she got out of the farking way. riplyes's should have been there. it is well to note that every year, i turn our driveway into the luge track of death, with the snowplow for the kids sledriding adventures. fortunately, the back end of the car hit the completely frozen embankment, and it spun me around 180 right back down the driveway with a wing where my fender used to be, and the muffler was abscombed from its morrings. hmmmmmmmmmmm
plan b was to use the neighbors driveway.
plan c was quickly enacted.
plan c for mrs eliot was to take off her heels and walk stocking footed up MNT GREASY GLASS. she said she could walk fine, and plan c was confirmed in the immediate. ( i knew her feet were melting the ice, but THAT would end soon. see about 6 steps ) i also kept that thought to myself as i had to focus real hard at not falling down. so there we were, laughing and blankety blank'n our way up. i do remember i kept yelling i'm calling all my friends to tell'm you walked up the driveway barefoot. she's carrying her shoes in one hand and using ice bolders as hand and foot holds. me too. it was the ONLY way. realizing she was holding me up and making me wait, i thought it prudent to express chivalry and offer to carry her shoes. then she could have two hands to grab frozen ice. it was about 10 degrees. i put the shoes in my hood cause i didnt want to slide back down the luge track for the bruising would be severe. kinda like free falling. probably would hit about 30 mph. we HAD TO crawl under weighted low hanging pine boughs. thats when one of here shoes were wrested from the hood, down it went. oh well.
after the ascension, its rather flat at the top, one would think the worst is over, thats when i HEARD mrs eliot go down. ( see impact, and that certain sound your lungs make ) i dont care who you are, thats funny.
got the st bernard un hooked. scary cause he is so excited to see us, and he cant stand up too good either, and he likes to LEAN into ya. yeah, i stayed vertical.
saturday, we're running low on wood, with all the snow, its rather difficult to find convenient wood. so,,,,,,, i grab my 87 350 orange ugly dump, complete with bad engine knock and fan belt screeching, saw, giant log turner thing, file, gas, oil, extra chain just in case, and my frankenstein mull. 14.5 # of pure splitting furry,,,,,,, and set out to cut the tree of death. 50' red oak snag. perfect. i've been looking at the tree for twice a day for about 2000 days. so close, so convenient, so dry, right by the road. i'm desperate enough too.
everything went great. prayers are real. four hours for a full cord. ahhhhhhh life is good.
sunday. in law party, but i stay home to play with my backhoe in the cold all day rain. it was 32 degrees. all day alone with my dirty little hoe. yes, life IS good. to date we had 3.5 feet of snow, and the only way to get the wood around the house was too excavate the snow. took 5 hours, and 4 of them were cold and wet. 2.5 of them were spent twisted around looking backward. and i might have contracted anheisers disease, but i'm still not sure.
GREAT, the way is clear, but spring is gonna suck because of the three tons of sod i'm sure i scooped up with the snow. some drifts were 5'. its 4:55 pm, dark at 5:30. man, i rode that dirty little hoe hard.
i'm tired,
hungry,
cold,
wet,
half buzzed
the wood from yesterday is still on the truck,,,,,,,, for a reason. i needed the weight so that i could PULL another 50' snag that WAS,,, 50 feet down over the hill, through 2 feet of snow, up hill, after i cut it down in twighlight. i've been fantasizing at this tree a while also.
there is at least one ton, maybe two on the truck. had to position the truck perpendicular across the road in order to pull the tree straight up the hill first. then it was positioned well enough that i could then re hitch the chain and pull this giantsonofabitch a half a mile up the road to our house. it is now half past dark thirty. mr busch was long for moral support.
first attempt to pull, nice and easy, didnt work. at all. slacked the chain but a smidgeon, and tugged harder. it aint moving.
hmmmmmmmmmmm. slacked up about 6-8' of chain, and hit it hard. BANG,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i'm mobile, and cant slow down now. up and out comes mr 2 ton white oak and up the road we go like ninja's in the night. i'm sure the neighbors thought it was a plow truck with all that rumbling grinding. then, the truck mysteriously picks up speed, and i realize the chain evaporated on the asphalt as if by magic. that giant line scrape in the road was probably made from the plow truck too. hmmmmmmmmm. re hooked, and hit it as hard as i could to make it up the driveway. had to ge the speed up. the mailbox did NOT get ripped out. thank God for wood nymph fairies. the truck almost couldnt do it, the pedal IS to the metal. after i un hooked, i went inside, got another beer, and walked outside, colder, wetter, hungrier, and the beer is starting to seem like whiskey in affect, and i scream in pure unadultered jubilation I DID IT.
that tree was 60' with big giant branches at the small end, and the but end was 20" - a 16" section weighs about 100#. its stringy stuff. the kind of wood that when you hit the wedge witha 14# mull, the wedge BOINGS out about three times before ya find a place that it will stick. and forget about trying to split 3 feet sections without a wedge. a 14# mull hardly dents it with a 'thunk' sound.
by now, i was kinda hoping the truck woulda unloaded itself, but it didnt, so around the house i go, past the treehouse swingset through all that mud ( it didnt used to be mud ,, it used to be grass ) and stacked. had another beer, called mrs eliot and say, 'oh my god honey there is a 60 foot tree down in the driveway' wait till you see it' just to get her excited. i could tell she was excited, by the way she kept saying ' oh my god, what happened' i told her to wait till she saw it. driving the truck past the tree house, i clipped the mirror, and the back end of the gate was down, which extended the length of the truck, which caught the swingset tree house on the tight turn, and brought i all DOWN smash and crash. maybe, just maybe the beer had an influence. hmmmmmmmmmmm.
walked down the driveway to fix the muffler with two flashlights and thats when i could FEEL two muscles at the base of my tailbone. one on one side, and one on the other. the ones that connect to the tailbone. each step. that was interesting. hmmmmmmmmm. i was already wet and cold, so laying on my back in the stream that was running down the side of the road wouldnt be too shocking to the system. got the muffler on just about the same time the water started making its way through my pant down the leg.
had dinner, went to sleep at 10:30
the end
