Sunday, October 12, 8:33 AM
My back is sore as hell; I walked like a little old lady to
the bathroom this morning. I knew this would happen and yet I don’t mind. It
comes with the territory. It’s not because I’m getting older (though it's surely a factor). It’s because I spent the better part of yesterday at the Holm farm in
Big Lake, MN, where my in-laws live.
Saturday, October 11, 7:52 AM
We pull into the dirt driveway; the sun is up and at ‘em,
effectively blinding eastbound traffic on county road 4. I’m sipping my
Holiday-brand French vanilla cappuccino; it’s the first warm coffee-like drink
I’ve bought all year, and at under $1.50, it’s a bargain. I’ve got all the gear
I need; old gloves, a hat, a scarf, and layers of clothing. I haven’t done this
in a while, and by this I mean hard, manual labor in 27-degree weather. Yep, I’m
kind of a weenie; I may hold three different jobs, but all of them are inside
and involve and desk and a chair. I don’t get to roll up my sleeves all that
often and do real man’s work. But today I’m helping my father-in-law Doug
(along with the help of my brother-in-law Wes) tackle the arduous task of
chopping up a shitload of tree logs. After all, winter is coming.
my father-in-law Doug Holm
I brought my wife, Tate, with too. She’ll stay inside and
keep her mother, Val, company. At this point she is still very much pregnant,
and I discourage any manual labor she attempts, including whining (just
kidding, honey). Me and the guys mosey outside and head out back behind the
barn. The structure blocks the sun for the better part of the morning. What at
first feels too cold eventually becomes optimal working weather; you don’t
sweat too much, and the legions of mosquitoes have already fallen victim to Mother
Nature’s changing of the guard.
To help us with our work is a heavy duty pickup truck with a
dumper box in place of the regular, stationary bed. We’ve also got a diesel-powered
Bobcat to aid in our efforts. There are two chainsaws, but one isn’t functioning,
and it’s the new one (go figure). The heart of the operation is definitely the
trusty, gas-powered, hydraulic-utilizing log splitter. It’s old; if it were a
person it’d be old enough to earn a driver’s license. And it’s already had one
heart transplant (the engine was replaced a few years back). But it still works;
it works damn well, in fact.
Doug's trust ol' one-ton pickup
All around us are piles of wood; big piles. There’s still
lots of work to do. Big fat trunks need to be sliced up with the chain saw then
moved over to the splitter to be incrementally chopped up so as to fit into the
wood stove that helps heat the Holm residence. It’s tedious, not to mention
tough. Some of these chunks are quite heavy; some even require two men to move.
But the single-minded nature of the work brings a certain pleasure to the
experience; you know what you have to do and you know how much there is to do.
As the hours pass and the fruits of our labor become more evident,
continuing not only seems logical but preferable. Why stop now when we can get
more done!
The log splitter rarely meets a tree limb it can’t muscle
through; the put-put-put of its small engine providing the backing soundtrack
to our work, kinda like the rhythm guitar. The lead guitar then would
definitely be the chainsaw. Much louder, it draws attention as it eats through
the trees, spitting sawdust every which way. Its exhaust is seemingly more
prevalent as well. And when I catch a whiff it floods me with that small-engine
nostalgia that could only come from the kind of pollution generated by internal
combustion engines. It makes me think of the snowmobile we had growing up. Funny
how the smell of deadly exhaust fumes can be so intoxicating. OK, intoxicating
may be a bit too romantic a word for this subject. Let’s go with alluring. Satisfied?
my work buddy, the log splitter
Between Doug, Wes, and me, I think we made a pretty good
team. And before we knew it, it was lunch time. Hooray! After debating on
whether or not to invade the pizza that Tate had picked up from the local Pizza
Pub, we decided to take our fiendish hunger elsewhere. The three of us hopped
into Doug’s bright red Silverado pickup and headed into nearby Zimmerman to
dine at Papa’s Italian. I love Doug’s new truck; it’s big and cushy, and comfortable
even in the back seat. And when it starts the 5.3Litre V8 kicks out a guttural
grumble thanks to aftermarket dual exhaust. It’s enough to remind you of its
power, but never gets annoying, like the pipes on those trucks with bumper
stickers that read “loud pipes save lives”. Codswallop; loud pipes only tick
people off, even motor heads like me. Chest-pounding males have struggled with
their own various inadequacies for centuries, millennia, even. And the automobile
has often served as their manifested Napoleon complex. But that’s another
blog…a long blog.
Doug's 2010 Chevy Silverado
At Papa’s Italian, Wes and I order calzones, and Doug orders
lasagna. And damnit if they didn't have the best tasting fountain Mello Yellow
I’ve had in a long time. That alone was worth the trip. We talk about this and
that, and frequently about the automobile. On the ride back to the house we see
a 1967 Chevy Impala.
Doug's toys: '49 Chevy Pickup, '79 One-ton, 2010 Silverado
Despite each of us stuffing ourselves at lunch, our work
ethic appears intact. Besides, there’s only about another hour of work left
for the day. The last sixty minutes comes and goes quickly, and by the time
we’re finished we’ve chopped a mountain of split wood; we even split enough
wood to get casa de Holm through an entire winter.
roughly half of our finished wood pile
But as the work stops, the tire of our toil sets in. I ask
Tate to drive, but she doesn’t want to. It’s OK; I’ve got just enough juice in
me to get us home without dozing off. I’m fully prepared to pass out in bed for
the next two hours as we walk through our doorway, but Tate politely asks me
to rid myself of the working man’s perfume: A petrol-burning mix of diesel and
gas-fueled exhaust. A shower is in order.
The future may consist of the images we see in the movies,
where cars silently roll around, powered by batteries instead of
internal-combustion engines. Where the gardeners use lasers to whip weeds and
Bobcats are replaced by hover-dollies. Whatever our bright future holds for us,
if it’s without gasoline and the various engines it powers, it just won’t be
the same. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, or maybe you’ve never taken a whiff
of snowmobile exhaust; and if so, that’s your loss.
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