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
I slept on the roll-away. It sucked. But my alternative was to sleep with Terry, who sleeps naked, or my father. It wasn’t really that hard of a decision. The only thing that sucks about being the youngest is that I get the “roll-away” in most situations with these two. I didn’t even get a rock, paper, scissors option.
Dad checked us out of the hotel, so Terry and I went in search of the free eats that come with hotel stays. I was trying to watch my bready food intake, so I grabbed what must have been powdered eggs and some sausage and a little bit of chocolate milk. Terry had a heaped plate with all kinds of goodies. I think I even saw him putting something into his coat pockets. We still had four or five hours before we reached the farm. It pays to be prepared. I did likewise and stuffed some apples into my pocket.
Terry and I took off from Bismarck, mini-excavator in tow, and headed north towards Minot. Dad would catch up to us when we filled up with gas. An hour and a half into our drive Terry pulled out two hard boiled eggs, grinning. I peeled, he drove, and we ate. I pulled out my two apples and told him that I bet I could eat my apple in fewer bites than him.
“You’re on,” he said.
We came up with some game rules like we could discard the stem beforehand but that the apples had to be eaten whole, no core left, and it had to be swallowed – no spitting it out. Since I got the roll-away last night Terry kindly suggested that I could go first. I saw right through his kindness – he wanted to see what type of competition I was.
Terry’s truck has this neat heater where you can adjust the temperature for either the driver or passenger. When he wasn’t looking I adjusted his to scorch while mine was a hair below just right, to compensate for the heat that would be radiating from his side of the cab, anything to tip the scales in my favor.
I held nothing back and positioned my lower row of teeth just above where the stem had been, giving my small mouth the biggest bite possible and, hopefully, the edge needed to crush my opponent. Crunch, squirt. My first bite was epic.
Terry’s eyes went wide. “Whoa…”
Terry rolled his apple around looking at it, then positioned it with the same expertise I had. Chomp. Terry’s bite was every bit as impressive as mine. We went down the road silently eating the huge chunks of apple that were in our mouths. The next four bites for each of us were a wonder, the likes of which have not been seen ever again. It was a heroic draw in the end.
We approached Minot, and the speed limit drastically dropped.
“Watch out for cops,” I told him. Just then a stater pulled out two cars back. With the tractor and out of state plates we were a big target. “One just pulled out behind us.”
Terry looked in his rear view mirror and looked back to me and said in a twenty’s-gangster voice, “You’ll never take me alive, Copper.”
I did only what was natural when spending time with my brother. I enjoyed the moment.
We filled up in Minot, and Dad caught up to us. Bottineau was only a few hours north and east. I could feel the farm calling to us. When we reached the smallish town of Bottineau we pulled into the Wal-Mart to grab a few extras before we arrived at the farm. Dad asked Terry if he would buy some chicken. Mr. cheap-ass himself found the three-day-old container of reduced priced, dehydrated chicken that looked marginal at best. The gap between the outer fried layer and any part of the real chicken whether it was bone, sinew, gristle, or the driest chicken meat the planets ever known was so large it was a wonder how Wal-Mart could even sell such crap. Dad and I took a few bites then tossed the nastiness out for coyotes to ignore.
We left Bottineau and headed east to Dunseith where we filled up all the gas tanks, including two empty five-gallon containers with diesel.
The farm is in the middle of the Turtle Mountains, about six miles south of the Canadian border, and snuggled in on the east side of Willow Lake with two successively smaller lakes to the north, Berry and Sandy Lakes. On clear nights you can see the blinking lights from the International Peace Gardens found at the border crossing.
North on Highway 281 we drove until we got to 104th St NE, a county-maintained gravel road, and headed west towards the farm. With three rights and two lefts we pulled onto the property.
The farmhouse road is about a mile long with small lakes surrounding the entrance. I love the farmhouse road; it rolls and turns right, then left, with hilly fields ready to be planted with wheat, canola, or alfalfa and waiting for the weather to turn dry, as it had been really wet spring. The last left-turn dips down then lifts up; a bit more up, and you see the sharp tip tops of the spruces on the right with the softer rounded box elder and oak behind and surrounding the white-with-green-trim farmhouse.
We pulled up just after ten in the morning. There’s always a lot to do when you first get there. Terry and I jockeyed the trailer around, then we unloaded our stuff while we waited for dad to show up. Dad arrived and we got going on pulling out the saw horses and plywood to make our table in the one-car detached garage where we store all our tools and most of our stuff. The house always needs a cleaning before we take anything in because no one is living there – there isn’t water in the house right now.
The farmhouse has no water because of the collapsed well; this is the entire reason for coming, to see about fixing the well that was dug in the 1930s or 40s with a mule and an auger to the depth of forty-two feet. In the meantime we have a set-up with a 250 gallon tank that we fill up, gathering water from neighbors
With the tank system we pump the water out of the tank into the house so we can flush, shower, and clean the house with running water. It’s a luxury that first world countries take for granted and when you don’t have it, things like cleaning out the refrigerator before we stock it with our week’s supply of food is miserable.
“Hey Mike, go clean out the refrigerator.” Dad was in full captain-chief-order-us-around mode, but I was fine with this task because it was going to take some time and I could focus on it and not his orders.
When I opened up the refrigerator it was full of dead flies and smelled of mildew. All I had to clean the refrigerator with was some Clorox wipes that had been left from last year when we were here. They were dried out, so I poured some water from one of my partially drunken water bottles.
I was annoyed with Dad within seconds. I wasn’t doing it right or some silly notion. My dad, at his age, gets stressed really easy. The smaller the issue the easier he gets flustered. Terry pulled me to the side and gave me the “we are here for Dad” speech.
I listened to what he had to say and agreed. Terry helped, and we filled up the fridge and freezer with goodies. I went back out to help in the garage and to finish unpacking Dad’s truck. I took a few items inside the house, and when I came back outside Terry was mad about Dad telling him how to sharpen the chainsaw. What does sharpening a chainsaw have to do with anything we needed to do with unloading the truck and getting the house ready to live in for the next week?
What a wiener. I knew immediately what had happened and smiled. I love when my brother can’t take his own advice, which is all the time.
I hollered to him, “Where you going?”
“For a walk!” He yelled it a little on the loud side.
I knew this was going to be an awesome week. If I was smart I’d just sit back and watch.
“Don’t go to the well house!” I replied just as loud. “You should wait ‘til Dad goes down with you.” I knew that he would head straight for the well after that.
Getting mad out here on the farm has its advantages. Take Terry for example, I knew he was real mad, but he’s also getting out of doing work while the other two, i.e. Dad and I, get to finish with the unpacking. You win this round Terry.
Dad was stressing. Terry was mad.
I kept hauling stuff into the house and organizing the garage. Dad wanted me to clean the house and started telling me to do this and that. I took Terry’s cue and went outside and started weed-eating around the house, then the trees in the front, then the barns and outbuildings. I did not want to spend my time doing all of that crap inside. My least favorite thing in the entire universe is to clean up houses, and this farm house is gross. Mice turds everywhere; Uncle Ray and Aunt Mary’s clothing smells like they were homeless for the last twenty-five years; and we don’t have running water. Cleaning the house is Dad’s job.
I ran out of line in the weed-eater and headed back to the garage. Terry still hadn’t come back, and Dad was doing only marginally better. The good thing about these first few crappy hours at the farmhouse is it can only get better.
I sat the weed-eater down in the garage. “What’s up, Dad?”
“We need to get ahold of the Strong’s to get water. “
Terry showed up, all was good with him, and those two headed out to see if they could find water from a neighbor.
I knew I needed to save the day, so I made a fire. I love fire and it loves me.
They returned with no water, so Terry and I started on dinner.
We grabbed the tripod, chain, and Dutch oven and filled it with chili. Then we sat back and ate peanuts and watched the fire. Dad joined us.
Dinner was good, our stomachs were filled, and attitudes readjusted. We took a walk down to the well house. It was small, maybe eight by six feet, with rotted boards that were touching the ground and a partially hinged door with a bent nail lock that swiveled to unlock it. Inside was a square piece of sheet metal covering the three-foot diameter corrugated pipe. We couldn’t get a good look at it because the pipe was jammed with foam and old rotten wood pieces. This would be a task for another day.
We returned to the farmhouse, and I stoked the fire real good before turning in for the night.
With no water I was going on day two without a shower. I had sweated and worked hard weed-eating, so I stripped out of my clothes after Dad and Terry had gone to bed and tossed my rude underwear into the fire. I cleaned myself from neck to toe with the Clorox wipes and felt that clean natural tingling sensation that only bleach does to your skin. I stood and watched the fire turn blue and purple with the filthy wipes and stretched in my birthday suit, warming me in the cool night air.
Day Three – No Mo’ Chili: Monday May 27, 2013