Maybe twenty years ago. Left the farm right before the county sheriff arrived. My luck is like that. Once again on the run, I chose the hard road. My luck is like that. – JDW
Made me an offer here at the farm. I couldn’t refuse. Mowed the lawn, moved numerous truck loads of wood, deweeded an acre of land, cleared and tilled the garden patch, bushwacked poison oak and a bunch of other stuff which has left me stiff and achey.
My hands, crusted with shovel hickies, are in a claw shape from holding the Weedeater.
I do plumbing now. One afternoon, I climbed a ladder up one side of the water tank, lowered another ladder down into the few inches of water still left inside. I climbed down, wrenched on a filter, then climbed out. Pulling one ladder behind me, I stepped up and spun over and leaped out as another hand steadied the ladder on the outside.
Who do I look like, Rhonda Harding?
***
Of course, I wash the dishes, I cleaned the oven and am otherwise the model of deportment in all ways. Ha!
Every night, when we actually have barnyard animals, I feed and water the herd. The pack of dogs alone can keep a guy busy, what with all the walking in the woods, the tummy rubbing, and the ball-tossing, too.
Everybody seems to have much the same idea about Merry Miler, so doubtlessly it will be sold. Or parted out. Until then it’s under a blue plastic tarp waiting patiently for the next adventurers to climb aboard. I am thinking about creating CAMPER VAN STREETROD.
Restore Merry Miler as Barker’s favorite steed, toting The Black Gang and Barker as they roam the United States and later the world in the pursuit of fun and justice. Pretty much in that order.
Drop a new engine in the Miler. New tranny, too, probably. New wheels and tires, which can wait until they wear out. Paint it black, where it’s green. Have been thinking about doing the interior in black and white. Maybe white spots on black or vice versa. Holstein hides would be good. The machine and I have a personal relationship and I thought a lot of weird shit behind the wheel.
Fifty miles from my old neighborhood and that’s about as close as I need to get until I get some work finished.
And some actual money in my pocket. The dog will need to be fed.
I am starting my life all over again.
And I am always free to go. Too much time to think when you are a farmer. Like, what the fuck?
To farm, or not to farm. asking myself whether it might be nobler than life in the teeming grey city.
Here’s an idea. Farm Olympics. The Hired Hand Decathlon. Cow Pie Toss. Fence jumping. Calf chasing. We could call it, oh, crap, a rodeo.
***
Garden beavers with power tools and knee pads built a huge nest on the edge of the area I had just tilled with an eleven-horsepower Rottosaurus, imagine Fred Flintstone mowing his lawn. Macville U-Rent’s motto is “You bring it back broke, we let you keep it”. Twenty percent is the interest charge.
As a handy man, let’s just say, I need a tech manual to put on my work gloves properly. There’s more to this bucolic-looking agricultural lifestyle than meets the unclad cornea.
At the farm there is always work to be done.
Right off one day looked pretty much the same as another.
Without the benefit of mass media, would’ve never noticed the weekend. Morning paper bigger than a plump newborn meant Sunday. Big black woman making noise in the afternoon on television means a weekday. Big black men making noise in the afternoon on television usually means a weekend.
The only way to keep my hands clean is by writing.
Heavy physical labor often leaves plenty of time for heavy thinking.
Or so I’m told.