Author Archives: Dick

Plowed!

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I figure I can drive anything with wheels. The Great White Fleet right now includes a (white) pickup and an 18′ flatbed trailer, the (topless) (white) car, a more traditional (white) sedan, and a (mostly green) John Deere 2210 diesel tractor with a front end loader, mid-mount mower deck, and a 3-point snowblower. The bucket, mower, and blower are all 54″ which is a convenient width. I also have a five-foot brush hog and a five-foot swivel blade, but that’s another story. We’ve sold the race cars but in years past, I have manhandled a twin-stick Mack, lugged barrels and boats with a twin-boom fork, and shepherded race cars with and without fenders. Rufus is annoyed that I can tuck a trailer into a blind alley with 6 inches of clearance.

I’m still getting the hang of filling the tractor bucket, though. Dumping it is easy peasy but filling it while leaving nothing on the ground is still a trick.

I’ve had a chance to practice this past week.

Schools across the county had all cancelled Wednesday’s sessions before the 6 p.m. newscasts Tuesday evening as the biggest snowstorm of the season rollicked across Southern Vermont on its way to North Puffin. I had cleaned up all the open spaces just before dark so the drive was as ready as it could be. In fact, I even opened a new path to the woodshed as well.

I don’t have brine so I have to plow the old fashioned way: out in the elements, sitting high on my tractor, pushing and sometimes lifting the snow with the front end loader bucket.

Did I mention that I haz a tractor?

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“Plowing” with a bucket means pushing the snow ahead of the tractor with the bucket until you either (a) fill the bucket or (b) get to the end of the driveway. In either case, the technique at the end of the run is to lift the overflowing bucket of snow high onto a mountain of snow somewhere out of the way and deposit same. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Did you remember my tractor has a snowblower?

Unfortunately, that snowblower is buried at the very back of the garage, behind all the materials for the new porch construction that were supposed to be out of the way (meaning back where they belong) by Fall.

I figured then it would be OK. After all, we don’t get many big snow falls and I didn’t blow any snow at all last year. Right? Right.

Ten inches of snow by the time I plowed the third time around 5 p.m on Wednesday. I measured another three inches at bedtime and it was still snowing lightly, small, sparkly flakes. The land is really quite pretty. Weather radar shows the majority of the storm had passed us by then.

SIXTEEN INCHES.

Lordy Lordy™

And it could have been worse.

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My running total, with the Wednesday night-Thursday morning’s four inches, was just 14 inches total but the undisturbed, undrifted roof of the Mercedes told the real story on the yardstick. 16 inches. Shoveled the walk. Dragged a shovel’s width out from the south door of the porch portico so that door can open if need be. I have plowed and plowed and plowed and plowed. I moved all the new snow out of the driveway and then cleaned up the edges. I also opened up the walkway we use to get to the woodshed but still needed to plow up to the barn.

On Friday, I plowed the new snow, neatened up everywhere, opened up the woodshed again and the dooryard and made a path to the barn. Even ran the Camaro for a while to circulate the juices and charge the battery. On Saturday, I made another little path so we could get to the pile of locust since that particular wood was running low in the woodshed. I like it for overnight burns.

And then it started snowing again. Overnight.

Recall that plowing really means pushing and lifting. That’s easy when the snow is two or three inches deep because it takes most of the driveway to fill the bucket. Plow down, lift, dump. Plow back, lift, dump. Much more than that couple-three inches, though, and the lifting/dumping cycle happens with greater frequency.

I plowed Sunday in sunshine. And plowed. And plowed. Eleven inches of fairly heavy, wet snow. I had to move a lot of it by the bucket full. The lift/dump cycle for eleven inches of fairly heavy, wet snow turns out to be every ten feet or so of driveway.

27 inches of snow is more than enough. And it looks like it’s about to start. Again.

I have absolutely used up every convenient place to put snow but one and that one, at the head of the driveway, is convenient only for the circle at the head of the driveway. It’s tough to bring snow all the way there from anywhere else.

And that was kind of the point.

I can drive anything with wheels but Anne has never had much reason to. Oh, she drives pickup trucks and station wagons and garden tractors but she isn’t very good at backing up a trailer and had no “heavy equipment” experience at all.

It did snow in December and January while I was out of state. I came back here to neat piles of snow where there should be piles and no snow where there shouldn’t. The sight lines at the road were clear. And there was plenty of room for the next storm and the next. She had mastered the plow/lift/dump cycle beautifully and she did it on her own.

I wonder …

 

Another Unofficial Polynoodling Random Babbling Thing

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Busy time in our world. Nancy “snuck” in some new thoughts here and Don gives us more to think — and talk — about over there.

Welcome, Don!

“My girlfriend’s in Florida, with her boyfriend,” the Hip one wrote. “But it’s okay! His wife is cool with it.”


Sculpture by Ania Modzelewski
Earlier in this series, we saw that relationships succeed because the people in them like each other. Nancy and I truly like one another. I know this is necessary for any successful, long-term relationship. That’s why my way to write that opener might be, “My girlfriend’s in California, with her boyfriend. But it’s okay! I’m cool with it.”

Nancy, Don, and I have all known each other Internetally for more than a decade. Regular readers may know my long-held belief that everyone on the Internoodle is just like me: we are all exactly the same age, have the same cultural background, and the same lifestyle and interests. After all, we all met in an Internet newsgroup where everyone is an axe murderer.

Yeah, yeah. I know it isn’t true. But I have bonded with and made attachments to the people I like there.

“This woman and I have an amazing connection, and when she’s away in her devotion to another, the alternative to laughter you can guess at,” Don wrote.

I’ll get back to that.

I understand the connection. You may recall that Nancy and I have shared the travails of our parents and our children, job gains and job losses, real estate conundrums, used dog stores, hermitting and hanging mirrors, … and laughter. And now Don. We have two important things in common: we like Mets baseball and we’re both paper-trained.

In The Aftermath, Part I, I wrote, Love is not a finite resource. Time is. Balancing expectations may be the hardest part of having more than one partner. It is for us, but Nancy makes it possible.

I sometimes lose a little bit of the tucking in and breakfast snuzzlings when my girlfriend has company but we’re working on ways to keep the flame alive with phone and email and pokery. Likewise, when Don’s girlfriend was in Florida with me, she kept up with him with email and FB and pokes. Surprised and pleased him, I’m thinking.

It is a big deal because I’m not always there to keep her happy. Neither she nor Anne can always be there to keep me happy. No one can be.

It’s a balancing act but worthwhile because I will likely never go to Burning Man and Don will likely never go to Pago Pago but Nancy might like to do both.

We’ve said in past pieces that the reality of poly-tasking means switching quickly from one to the next but our experience means we can expand that definition. Nancy doesn’t switch from one to the other, not really. When she was “tasking” with me in Florida, she also considered Don and fretted over the loneliness and pain she knew he was feeling. When she was in California, she thought about me and whether I was getting what I needed. And so on.

That all means I have a different answer to Don’s sentiment, “when she’s away in her devotion to another, the alternative to laughter” could be tears. See, Nancy and I don’t lose our linkage when she is not physically with me. Ever.

Nancy asked me, “How do you feel, not in comparison to Don, but how do you feel about it?”

Nancy is joyous. She makes me blessed. I feel good.

[Editor’s Note: Nancy and I shared a four-part polylocution plus these Afterglow posts. Please visit her piece, An Unofficial Polynoodling Random Babbling Thing, and use The Poly Posts index for the entire series and for other resources.]



Premte Peeves

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A (self described) vain writer I know visited the dermatologist to have a couple of liver spots disappeared. “A sweep of makeup would hide them completely,” she said, but the doc wrote a ‘scrip for a topical cream. $239. She paid a $20 co-pay. And will wait 4-6 weeks for results.

“Way to stick it to the man (the insurance man),” she said.

Actually, way to stick it to this man, since we have the same insurance. I could feel my wallet drying as the premium climbs.

Getting It Up

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Locally renowned entrepreneur (and my old friend) Ernie Epplethorpe is starting another new business, Excellent Ernest’s X-Ray Emporium. He sent me a copy of the message he spammed around, partly so I’d know what he’s up to and partly in case I wanted to bid the job. (I didn’t.)

Website designers: I’d like to create www.excellenternestsXXXemporium.net. I’ve been working on it myself but have started to realize I might be better served getting grants for the business and hiring a designer. If you are interested (and are seriously affordable) please call me. Thanks!

No sooner had I responded to that message than a new client did show up in the dooryard. A local dipswitch manufacturer named Dudley Donato is moving from his garage operation to a shared new building in the county industrial development park in Puffin Center. Mr. Donato needs to install some new packers and to scale up his order fulfillment technology since most orders are either for one or two switches or for one or two pallet loads.

Dudley Donato’s Dependable Dipswitches and Excellent Ernest’s X-Ray Emporium. Really. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

We’ll have new equipment on Mr. Donato’s dock by the end of February.

I told Mr. Epplethorpe that we’re not cheap enough but I did advise that he would be well served by concentrating on his core strengths and hiring (somebody) out to do the jobs he doesn’t want or can’t do.

That’s Business Startup 101.

There’s a caveat, though.

Mr. Epplethorpe, despite the grandeur of his newest corporate name, is a sole proprietor. Here’s what I asked — and told — him:

Are you working the requisite 80 billable hours/week? If not, are you working 80 hours/week on something that will lead to something billable? Are you motivated enough to do it yourself?

If those answers are no and no and no, Are you a good enough HTML jockey and are you also good enough at marketing? If so, your own time might be better spent on webwork than on other activities.

New business owners have a perennial problem. When there is enough time, there is never enough money to do a job. When there is enough money, there is never enough time.

We’ve all seen the new “Coming Soon!” restaurant in town not open and not open and not open while the owners slave with spackling and paintbrushes and oven wiring. Not much money coming in the doors when the doors aren’t open. The best argument to plan for outside help is this: excellenternestsXXXemporium.net has yet to go live and Mr. Donato’s dipswitches are switching on and off already.

The Great Female Vocalist (rock/pop/country singer-songwriter) of last week just finished submitting a new song to the Library of Congress. “It is so easy now that everything is done electronically,” she told me. “Some artists have ‘people’ to do this stuff. I am my people. Hey, I think I’ll have a company party tonight.”

It was a great party.