It has been an odd pair of days.
Yesterday, before six, I hitched up our old utility trailer,
loaded a bucketful of electrical tools and gadgets,
and drove 150 miles south to our log house, in Iowa.
We store the trailer there for the winter, to keep our driveway
clear for snowmobile conventions and igloo villages.
I knew that there were 15 or 20 wires converging
in an electrical box in our two-story outhouse,
and it was time to sort them out and finish the wiring.
"An outhouse," I thought to myself. "That's primitive!"
"An insulated, electrified, and heated outhouse!"
I felt as if I were participating in at least two centuries.
With that job done, I tossed a twenty-year-old pile
of firewood into the pickup; something to slow the creep
of the glacier up the hill and over the house. We have already
had a snowfall, and this is Minnesota, and October.
"A wood stove!" Baseboard heat, and a woodstove.
Today I spent all morning out in the driveway with a chopping
block salvaged from the logging crew on our last visit south,
and a splitting maul. I wondered if any of the neighbors
thought it odd to see that old codger, over there, with a
yellow-handled splitting maul, splitting wood, as if it were still
the 19th century. Across the street, a young kid on a $6000.
lawn mower was pulverizing leaves at about 35 miles per hour,
intent on shredding them off the property and into the street.
I was splitting old wood with a new splitting maul.
A dozen or so large ceramic pots have been stored for winter.
What remained of the plants, and all the dirt, has been used
to fill a low spot in the yard, although the glacier might scour
it, and push it halfway to Iowa. It is a chance we take,
we who live between centuries; between technologies.
I think of myself as a bridge between Ardi, Lucy, and those
Neanderthals who sell insurance, or something, on TV.
After all, Herbert Hoover was President when I was born.
Yesterday, before six, I hitched up our old utility trailer,
loaded a bucketful of electrical tools and gadgets,
and drove 150 miles south to our log house, in Iowa.
We store the trailer there for the winter, to keep our driveway
clear for snowmobile conventions and igloo villages.
I knew that there were 15 or 20 wires converging
in an electrical box in our two-story outhouse,
and it was time to sort them out and finish the wiring.
"An outhouse," I thought to myself. "That's primitive!"
"An insulated, electrified, and heated outhouse!"
I felt as if I were participating in at least two centuries.
With that job done, I tossed a twenty-year-old pile
of firewood into the pickup; something to slow the creep
of the glacier up the hill and over the house. We have already
had a snowfall, and this is Minnesota, and October.
"A wood stove!" Baseboard heat, and a woodstove.
Today I spent all morning out in the driveway with a chopping
block salvaged from the logging crew on our last visit south,
and a splitting maul. I wondered if any of the neighbors
thought it odd to see that old codger, over there, with a
yellow-handled splitting maul, splitting wood, as if it were still
the 19th century. Across the street, a young kid on a $6000.
lawn mower was pulverizing leaves at about 35 miles per hour,
intent on shredding them off the property and into the street.
I was splitting old wood with a new splitting maul.
A dozen or so large ceramic pots have been stored for winter.
What remained of the plants, and all the dirt, has been used
to fill a low spot in the yard, although the glacier might scour
it, and push it halfway to Iowa. It is a chance we take,
we who live between centuries; between technologies.
I think of myself as a bridge between Ardi, Lucy, and those
Neanderthals who sell insurance, or something, on TV.
After all, Herbert Hoover was President when I was born.
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