Day Zero – Chipotle, Swollen Glands and a Special Kind of Hell: Friday May 24, 2013
Day One – Five Tires Later: Saturday May 25, 2013
Day Two – The Farm: Sunday May 26, 2013
Day Three – No Mo’ Chili: Monday May 27, 2013
Luckily I’m short or sleeping on the couch would suck and make my neck hurt really badly. It usually does anyway, but after a long day anything is good. My first night’s sleep at the farm was good. The first thing I see as I wake up is Terry’s face inches away from mine. He has a huge smile.
“Mornin’, bro.” He heads outside.
I get going and head straight for my fire and start poking around. I’m a fire whisperer. I dig around in the ashes and find buried hot coals. It’s a game for me, really. I like to see how long I can keep the same fire going. I get some nice small pieces of wood ready or some paper garbage. I find a few hot nuggets of coal; gather them up nice and tight together, and then I gently blow on them. I like to get right down on the ground real close; I slightly increase the airflow and the embers start to glow more and more orangey-red.
I resurrect the fire without matches, and Terry gets out his dutch oven to reheated the chili. Terry is in charge of the food and my dad is in charge of the important stuff like family relations. That means pissing off the local relatives. They all want my dad’s financial help to keep the farm in the family so Aunt Mary doesn’t have to sell it to afford her assisted living care. She’s ninety-two and can’t be living in the farmhouse all alone, especially with the no-water situation – the flushing of the toilet with buckets of dirty water from the old cow trough is getting old. The hope is to fix that today.
My responsibilities on the farm are to weed-eat, keep the fire going, and to have fun with Terry. As the chili reheated Dad added a can of corn and some macaroni. We stood around and nodded in agreement; five minutes later – breakfast is served. Terry started early – eating after three minutes – and his serving was a bit cold and the macaroni still hard. As the cook, he should do the taste testing. Dad and I waited ‘til it was properly hot. Since no ladies are around we get to eat whatever the hell we want, and whenever the hell we want it.
Dad and Terry left to ask a neighbor about getting water. I sat around and ate peanuts and kept stoking the fire with wet wood from a really old stack that needed to be burned and cleaned up. There are plenty of trees around if we ever wanted or needed a new pile. Burning really is the best way to clean things up here.
They returned successful in the green Polaris Ranger with the red bins and garbage cans full of sloshing water. We transferred the water into the tank and then Dad tinkered with the pump while Terry and I sat around the fire with our second bowl of chili. Good thing we sleep in separate rooms and that we’re on six hundred acres.
Terry and I headed back to Strong’s to get another load of water. I sure do have fun hanging with my brother, he’s great and always up for an adventure. We transferred the second load of bins and garbage cans into the tank only to turn on the pump and find out that some of the pipes in the basement had burst from freezing this winter. No shower yet.
This time I headed out with Dad to the local hardware store. Even though my Dad only comes out here once a year the people here know who he is. He’s always making friends and he never shuts up either. He especially likes to talk to strangers. I fear that I’m heading down that weird path too; I get bolder the older I get. Terry’s almost as bad as Dad, and he’s twenty-two years younger than him.
We get some copper pipe, copper fittings and like any do-it-yourself project, we’ll be back – I’m sure of it. When we arrived back at the farm Terry had unloaded his mini-excavator, eaten piles of peanuts and who knows what. He loves the farm just like Dad and I do.
Terry and I headed out in the Ranger to look at the old farm equipment still lying around the fields, some of it’s pretty cool. Our favorite is the old road grader that was once pulled by a horse. The metal chair and steering wheel still swivel and turn. I’m amazed at how this stuff holds up year after year and doesn’t just turn to a pile of rust.
We drove out to Berry Lake to check it out, then over to Sandy Lake. There are two sets of hunters that come out each fall to hunt birds, deer, elk and who knows what else. There is a lot of wildlife in this area, and we see signs of the animals on the farm.
When we got back Dad was gone, he must have taken off to get more parts at the hardware store. Terry was on his second can of Red Bull by this time and was amped up and telling me what to do. He was so wired that it was funny. I smiled, ignored him, put more wood on the fire, and ate peanuts – tossing the shells into the fire. Terry realized that I was not paying attention so I got up and headed into the garage. I grabbed the loppers and began cutting dead branches that I could reach and tossing them into my fire. Terry was still talking; I was smiling and doing my own thing.
When Dad got back he saw that I was pruning and suggested that I trim the lilac hedge that was twelve feet tall and should only be five. It wasn’t what I wanted to do but I got started on it, spending time snipping and making it nice and even, cutting out the dead. Dad suggested I use the chainsaw so that it would go much faster. This is where I put my foot down.
“I’m not going to hack at the hedge with the chainsaw; it doesn’t cut but rips and that looks like crap.”
Dad bobbed his head back and forth and mumbled likes he was ten.
Finally the plumbing was fixed and I could shower; I did so, immediately. The water kills my eyes and reeks. Dad had put two pool bleach tablets into the tank. I do the old turn-it on-quick, get-wet, turn-off trick. Then I lathered and shampooed up, and rinsed just as quickly. Still, I believe it was probably the best shower I’ve ever had. I think it had been three and a half days since I showered, and the Clorox wipe-down didn’t count. I walked outside fresh and new only to see that my dad had hacked the hedge with the chainsaw and yep, it looked like shit.
He saw me looking over at it and said, “See? It looks pretty good doesn’t it?”
“NOOOOPE!” I drew out the O. “And that’s all the hedge I’m touching. If you want the rest done you can do it yourself.”
Terry was smiling, standing behind Dad who looked like I hurt his feelings. To be honest, I didn’t really care. These two clowns still think I need to be told, shown, and taught how to do everything and I just turned forty a week and a half ago. (The hedge still looks like shit to this very day, 2015.) I wanted to put up a sign that said, ‘Don Petry trimmed this hedge.’ It was my turn to take a walk.
“Where you going, Mike?” Terry yelled. I could hear his smile.
“Fuck you, Terry.”
Like I said earlier, with a nice stroll out on the farm and some time and distance, all is forgotten and forgiven. I was famished when I got back and needed to stoke the fire again. It was dinner time and yep we ate more chili, but I was getting tired of that.
“We need something new to eat tomorrow,” I said, and they both agreed. “Just toss the rest of that into the fire.”
Terry looked at me like I’d said the worst thing ever. He returned with a stack of bowls and filled them up and put them in the refrigerator. Dad and I smiled, and when Terry was out of earshot Dad said, “I’m done with chili.”
“Me too, Terry can eat all he wants.”
Hammered and tired we all turned in early that night. I was the last to turn in and was standing in the kitchen just thinking when a black dart zipped across the floor. Damn it, I hate mice. I walked out and peed off the side of the front porch before I headed to bed.