Last Sunday marked the end of the meteorological winter, the coldest (on average) 91 days of the year. Winter’s back may be broken but it’s still kicking up a fuss, dropping more freezing rain and another 10 inches of snow on the south flank of Nonesuch Mountain but, unlike a mad dog or a downed ewe that can be helped no longer, I can’t shoot it in the head and just get it over with. Continue reading
Rural Life
Driven to Distraction
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: driving, frost heaves, Humor, nature, roads, Rural Life, spring, Vermont, winter
6 Comments
Solar Powered Roof Rake
Thoroughly exhausted from a day of raking roofs, I slogged through deep, heavy snow for 45 minutes to reach the last of the roofs to rake. After a short rest to catch my breath and have a smoke, I put the pieces of my roof rake together and got to work, only to find that the blade skittered and bounced harmlessly off the thick layer of ice that had developed on top of the thick layer of snow. I lunged and swung and pulled and yanked until I was left with little more than a strip of bent, twisted aluminum on the end of a stick, and after that I sat down and cursed. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: Humor, ice, nature, roof rake, Rural Life, snow, Vermont, winter
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Quill Gordon and the Roof Rake
With better than 30 inches of new snow in the past week, New Englanders have been reaching for a tool that has remained basically unchanged since its invention: the roof rake. New materials have been introduced, making them lighter and easier to wield, but most changes have been simply variations on a theme. A long pole with a blade on one end is thrust up onto a roof and pulled back toward the thruster, bringing snow and ice crashing to the ground where it can melt harmlessly rather than collapsing whatever building it was sitting on.
The roofs here at Fish in a Barrel Pond are quite lovely and we would like to keep them.
As you can see, they have collected quite a bit of snow this week.
Some roofs are relatively flat and collect quite a bit of snow.
Others are fairly steep and able to shed their load. Eventually. I hope.
The roof rake. It sure beats the heck out of climbing up there with a shovel.
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: Humor, nature, roof, roof rake, Rural Life, snow, Vermont, who keeps using poop as a search term, winter
11 Comments
Quill Gordon vs. The Shack Nasties
Winter’s first snows are enthusiastically embraced, as fresh-faced whiteness hides the chilly decay of autumn and brightens the dark nights of December, radiating seasonal joy and warmth. But, like someone else’s irritating child that doesn’t know when to stop, it is eventually just tolerated with a grudging acceptance. The irritation persists and is ignored or repressed but, as with most things left to fester, it will eventually come out and it probably won’t be pretty.
The murder rate in colder, darker, northern states spikes a bit in February and there are those who think the early March timing of Town Meeting Day is no coincidence. Those rooms full of grumpy people certainly do provide entertainment when it is sorely needed but they may also serve as a communal valve for letting off steam. If nothing else, Town Meeting is at least something to do, and if the maple sap has started running we’ll have something new to talk about.
Folks talk about going “stir crazy” or having the “mopes” and they talk about Seasonal Affect Disorder and the benefits of full-spectrum lighting. They change their diets and their habits, hoping to feel better and, at the end of their 8-12 week course of treatment, the snow is melting and the red-winged blackbirds are back in the pussy-willows! Funny how that works with so many things – just when you’re sure you can stand no more, you’re done.
Like the first apple harvest I worked, which felt like it would never end even though I knew it must. I was about to shout, “No more apples! Ever!” and really mean it this time, but when I looked around I saw that, after seven hard weeks, there were no more apples.
Or the morning on Savage Island, when we were up to our eyeballs in little lambs and I just wanted it to stop, that I resolved to go to the barn and scream at the last few ewes who hadn’t yet given birth, “HAVE YOUR BABIES! NOW!” I didn’t scream at the sheep but they did all eventually have their lambs and I got to take a nap.
I stock up, bracing for the isolation to come, hoarding combustibles, comestibles and fiery potations of rum and other hard liquors (for medicinal purposes, you know), dashing out for more when time and weather permit but it gets old after a while, waiting for winter to end. This season’s cribbage tournament stands tied at 435 games apiece, providing a pleasantly amusing diversion, but the recent skirmish with the local beaver population, while certainly a diversion, was neither amusing nor pleasant.
“Why, Quill? Why?” they cry. “Why do you put yourself through it? Why do you spend your winters in cold places? You must get Cabin Fever!”
I’ve always preferred the term “Shack Nasties” as it seems so much more descriptive to me but I am outside for at least a part of every day so I don’t think it quite fits. I feel a sort of longing, an unfulfilled desire of sorts, but not for something unattainable. This desire will be fulfilled. All the signs are there. Twigs on the dogwoods below the house are turning red while the birches show purple, the big willow has taken on a golden cast and the buds on the crab apple out back have begun to swell. The sun makes it up over the top of the barn now and the African Violets on the window sill have burst into color. Winter is almost over and it feels good to know I’ve almost made it, even if that sounds a bit like saying that I hit my thumb with a hammer because it would feel so good when it stopped hurting.
Bring on the mud and the blackflies.
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: cabin fever, Humor, nature, Rural Life, snow, spring, Vermont, winter
6 Comments
Get a real job
The past two weeks have been busy ones, up here at Fish in a Barrel Pond. It is nice to have little lull in which to dust off the old keyboard for this dispatch.
I once told someone that I was not a “nine to fiver”. That statement, combined with my refusal to cut my hair, was taken to mean that I was a hippie. That person’s assumption has softened a bit but I am still considered to be counter-culture and therefore dangerous. Even now, toward the end of my first half century of life, I get asked when I am going to cut my hair and get a real job.
I was on the phone with an old friend the other day and he said something to the effect of how nice it must be to spend the winter way back in here with not a care in the world and nothing to do. Then he told me how much he would like to have a job like mine, if only he didn’t already have a real job he liked so much.
I told him about how hard winter rains have been backing up behind a plugged culvert and flooding the road to one of the cottages here at Fish in a Barrel Pond and how when I get on the phone to call the guy who clears the culverts the line is busy because that’s what happens when you try to call yourself. Isn’t clearing culverts a real job?
When it is discovered that the culvert is plugged because a pair of beavers stuffed it full of mud and sticks, it is time to call the trapper. His number is the same as the guy who clears the culverts so it appears he has at least two jobs, whether or not anyone thinks they are real.
I took my friend, Eugene, with me to check my trap sets yesterday. As I worked my way onto the ice shelf behind the culvert he made himself comfortable, sitting on my pack at the edge of the trail while I chipped away with my axe. It was nice and quiet in the woods, except for my banging on the ice and Eugene’s constant questions. I was standing with one hand on a hip, leaning with the other on the axe handle, trying to catch my breath, when he asked a doozy. “Aren’t you bored?” he asked.
Before I could answer, the ice shelf beneath me gave way and I fell back into knee-deep, nearly freezing water.
It was a quiet walk home.
When the dooryard needs to be cleared of a portion of the 100+ inches of snow we’ve had so far this season, I am the one on the tractor digging us out.
When I wake up at 2:00 a.m. under the mistaken impression that someone has put some billiard balls and a bobcat in the clothes dryer, I am the one sitting on a bucket in a dark corner of the old cellar reattaching the pulley and belt to the furnace’s blower motor.
Leaky roofs, broken windows, flooded roads, rock-battered boats and motors, animal/human conflicts, human/human conflicts, poachers, trespassers and other miscreants, tractors, mowers, chainsaws, computers and anything else that happens here, I am on it. Time of day and day of week don’t matter. This is not a nine to five job.
I could probably go and get me one of those real jobs but what would I do all day?
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: Humor, jobs, nature, Rural Life, variety, Vermont, work
6 Comments
A One-Way Ticket to Exile Island
When it comes to squirrels and chipmunks there is an exceptionally fine line between preposterously cute and inherently evil. The line was drawn by humans and therefore has no meaning to squirrels and chipmunks and, even if it did, they can only be cute for so long.
Last spring, a certain number of squirrels and chipmunks began exploiting the seemingly endless supply of bird seed that collected beneath the feeders. They were an efficient clean-up crew, stuffing their cheek pouches with sunflower seeds and millet, distorting their faces into gluttonous caricatures before running off to their secret larders, struggling to hold their heads up and even running sideways due to the weight. They had a good thing going but, being squirrels and chipmunks, they got greedy and messed it up.
Launching themselves from any and all nearby objects, the squirrels became furry projectiles. They would deliver glancing blows that scattered seed on the ground below, emptying the feeders at an alarming rate, but only if they could not actually catch themselves and hang on to a feeder in order to chew through plastic, aluminum and zinc-plated steel. That was like hitting the mother lode and the question of where they were stashing all that seed arose.
Clues started sprouting up in the form of sprouts. Specifically, sunflower sprouts in the ficus and millet sprouts in the African violets and, not long after the discovery of their little agricultural enterprise, it began to snow pink insulation as the squirrels adjusted the R-value of the attic to their liking by pushing it out through their newly chewed-through entrance.
With all the cottages at Fish in a Barrel Pond full of Club members and their families, the use of guns was out of the question. Not that crawling into the attic with a shotgun was an option to begin with, but something had to be done and what was done was this: Continue reading
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: animal, chipmunk, Humor, nature, pest, rodent, Rural Life, squirrel, trap, Vermont
8 Comments
Quill Gordon Channels Natty Bumppo
Animal tracks show up well in fresh snow and some people enjoy getting out and “reading” the “stories” those tracks have to tell, but generally the plot lines aren’t much. The woods are full of the apparently random ramblings of rodents and lagomorphs.
“A squirrel went from this beech to that maple” or “a hare passed by this log yesterday” are recurring themes in the woods.
There are times, though, when the story might be interesting, and you don’t even need to be Natty Bumppo in order to cipher it out.
If a large man on large snowshoes trudges across the frozen January crust it looks like this:
If a Northern Hawk Owl comes down on a vole it looks like this:
And if a coyote walks by and a rodent panics, “swims” to the surface and makes a break for it, that rodent is not long for this world. When the trait that causes poor decision making is eliminated from the mouse gene pool it looks like this, with coyote #1 on the left flushing the mouse, which skedaddled to the right where it was promptly pounced upon by coyote #2 :
Not really a thriller, and not much of a mystery, but at least somebody got a snack out of it.
Categories: Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: coyotes, natty bumppo, nature, owl, Rural Life, snowshoes, tracks, Vermont
4 Comments
An O-ring Revelation
The bleeder screw on that fuel filter, with its little drip hanging like a jewel, was just begging to be tightened. Knowing full well that over-tightening could damage the o-ring and defeat the purpose, while ignoring the possibility that a damaged o-ring might just be the problem in the first place, I went ahead and put a wrench to it.
A damaged o-ring once brought down a space shuttle, and while tractors don’t generally explode, fuel leaks are to be avoided just the same. A tiny fraction of a turn to seat it better was all it needed so I began to apply pressure. Just a little at a time until I felt it begin to move. Then I torqued it a tiny bit more, ever so carefully, with great restraint of strength.
Slow, tight, metal on rubber resistance changed abruptly to knuckle on engine block resistance as the head of the bleeder screw sheared off, leaving its threaded shaft embedded flush without even a nubbin to grab onto. A thin ribbon of cold fuel spurted through the bleeder’s tube and ran across freshly scraped knuckles making them sting. My foot stomped, a wrench clanged and, if ever a lightning bolt were going to hit someone, that moment would have been poetic as one particularly artful blasphemy bounced off the barn wall and traveled several hundred yards into the woods where it startled a group of crows who were taking a break from harassing owls.
No lightning bolt struck, and the curses mellowed into growls and harrumphs. I sucked soothingly on the worst of my bloody knuckles and pondered for a moment. When I was done pondering, I knew that 1) the situation was manageable without cursing and (2 it is actually possible to get used to the taste of diesel fuel.
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: blasphemy, Humor, mechanic, o-ring, Rural Life, tractor, Vermont
4 Comments
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 