HORSE FEATHERS

THE SIGN SAYS:KEEPS HORSES FROM DAMAGING THEIR STALL

After the Amish Patriarch scares the beejeesus out of me because I'm totally focused on doorknobs in the cabinet hardware aisle, I walk over toward horse feed in the local agri-center.  The TV monitor above the shelf of Uncle Jimmy's Hangin' Balls (three flavors) shows a horse eagerly licking a basketball size ball of grain.  Next to the shelf of Uncle Jimmy fare is a cardboard display of new, antique-looking metal signs.I'm partial to old signs.

In front of the shed we call a barn there's a NO NUDE SUNBATHING IN THE PARKING AREA sign on a wood fence post and a  folk art crow atop another post in front of the garage warns visitors to BEWARE OF CROW.

I briefly consider spending $10 on a Clothing Optional After This Point sign. I quickly dismiss the sign Warning:Beer May Interfere With Your Memory or Cause Memory Loss because the reason I'm at the hardware store cruising for a doorknob is that I forgot to purchase one at the big box store in Lacrosse the previous afternoon. No need to add insult to injury when I wake up at 4 am sputtering, "Shoot, I forgot the doorknob."

Who says there isn't humor to be found at the agri-center?

Long Shadows

Howard Shupe from an old photo

It seems like a hundred years ago, I met a quiet man in the parking lot of the Village Crossing grocery store in a small Arizona town built around a golf course designed by some infamous developer/promoter in 1976.  Neighbors spoke glowingly of a man who did amazing things with local wood, carving them into statutes.  He moved from Tucson to the small town after retiring from a career in the US Forest service starting as a timber cruiser and ending as the director of fire control for a large corner of Southern Arizona.

It was he who directed the tanker planes in mid-air loaded with water and clay to release their cargo on raging forest fires. He got his start in Taos, New Mexico a frontier town as he was growing up, marrying a local sweetheart, checking on grazing land leased by the forest service and setting a record for a huge number of trees blazed in one average workday. A normal forest service worker blazed 100 trees. He could do 600.

I've never met a man so humble.  After retiring, he moved from a house he and his wife built on the south side of a rapidly expanding Tucson cutting and hauling an incredible amount of stone by hand to an adobe hacienda with a courtyard off the main road in the new golf resort town.

Out of respect for his father, Elmer, he ceased carving wood statues after an incident in 1946 in which the elder advised him that we was not a very good carver. The son knew his father well. The father was saying, "I don't want the competition." 

Elmer was a rug trader, furniture maker and  ne'er-do-well  When the supply of old santos ( carved wooden saints) dried up, he learned to carve his own.  By the son's account they were primitive things. The son possessed skill as an artist, designing and creating silver jewelery, paintings, elegant furniture and carving saints from cottonwood root. With two children at home and a love for the outdoors, he eschewed his father's profession as rug trader and went to work for the forest service.

St.Patrick

Once he modestly said that after he retired he'd sold over $100,000 of santos to the rich, famous and collectors like me. He took me under his tutelage showing me the traditional methods along with modern techniques for carving Hispanic Catholic saints. The image above is not a usual Hispanic Catholic santo.  Howard had a repertoire of approximately 35 traditional santos to his father's half dozen max.  If asked to carve something different, he'd willingly indulge my whims.    

St.Francis Xavier

After first practicing traditional techniques on crosses, retablos, nichos and a few very primitive stick figures,I asked him for advice on carving a santo. He  assisted without hesitation, showing me how to perform complicated carving maneuvers.  Cottonwood root is in short supply since it's also the main material used in traditional Hopi kachinas. Howard described harrowing adventures with his wife lowering him on a sturdy rope down an eroded river bank to retrieve an exposed hunk of cottonwood root.  It's not something I would want to waste as a greenhorn carver, especially since my teacher gifted me several pristine samples of root.

My St.Francis Xavier

It's been years since I've worked with santos.  Two rustic carvings sit on my workbench in the garage.  In an upstairs bedroom, a St.Francis Xavier sits on the end of a Danish modern chest of drawers.  But is it St.Francis Xavier?  In Dawn's studio is an armoire with some of my favorite santos by Howard.  One is similar to Xavier, except for the leather cape, one of the few santos with additional ornamentation that is not wood.  I check my photo stock.  It appears there are three possibilities.  St. John, St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius Loyola.

I call the santero.  No answer.

In the two hours intervening I solve the mystery decoding a small label at the front bottom of a photo.  I answer my phone seeing a familiar number on the screen.  It's been six months if not longer since we've spoken. I make sure I identify myself after saying hello.  He's eighty-eight. After small talk about the weather here, I explain the solved dilemma, saving him the trouble of mentally imaging which of hundreds of santos, I'm talking about. He sounds healthy and in good spirits.  We talk about a newspaper clipping a granddaughter sends describing the sale of one of Elmer's primitive santos for $5,000.  Again, he offers me encouragement, well wishes to Dawn and signs off.     

Clever Words

Our cat,aptly named the Pooch because of dog-like tendencies, walks across me at 2:30am.  This is not usual. Usual is snugging up to his pork chop(me) purring loudly, content to sleep on, or next to me.  Something is wrong downstairs.  Mandy is asleep in the futon room.  I can hear her toenails click on the wood steps as I walk downstairs in a fleece robe Dawn made for me.

I let the dog out, take a pee, drink some water and walk about the house looking for a dead mouse or  worse. Earlier in the day, Mandy barks loudly in the entrance-way.  Mandy rarely barks, except in warning or to annoy a bird to fall from a tree in desperation to get away from the noise.When the UPS driver delivers a package inside the breezeway door, she leaps from the couch, runs to the back door without a murmur. When I investigate her arousal, I see what looks like a dog or coyote across the river over 300 yards away. Good girl.  Nice work Mandy.

But the Pooch?  Nothing is out of order, except that I'd left the cat's food out of reach of the dog on a kitchen counter. I place it on the floor for the cat. Disappointed in my Poochie Kitty ( a name my youngest called our former dog) I go back upstairs unable to sleep.  I close the door in the east bedroom and open a new book(for me) River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon.  Unlike other books on the shelf next to the bed, I'm not lulled to sleep.  Meandering detective stories, tales of a Yorkshire veterinarian, stories of servants in England made into a PBS series and The Count de Monte Cristo original translation lead to snores at 3 am.

William Least Heat Moon writes of a journey across America by boat.

"In river travel today, perhaps nothing is finer than arrival in the center of town without having to undergo those purgatorial miles of vile sprawl, hideous billboards, and reiterated franchises where we become fugitives of the ganged chains in an endless surround of noplaceness, where the shabbiest of architectural detritus washes up against the center of a town."  *

*River Horse, Across America by Boat, William Least Heat Moon copyright 1999 Houghton Mifflin Co.

This man is an amazing writer.  I chortle at quips like, "A collision at sea can ruin your entire day."  I marvel at words wishing I had my dictionary next to me.  On every page is a quotable lesson in life or something I find humorous. Only Bill Bryson can match wits with this man.  In the basement I post a quote of Bryson's,

"You have three things to be thankful for.  You were born. You are alive. Hang a yellow ribbon 'round an old oak tree will never be number one again."

On my office desk there is a pile of short tomes I've written in the past few years.  Originally they were stored in a file cabinet, but the hanging folder grew so large the stories started to curl, the folder sagged and gave way.  Pap and Twaddle, My Dog Saw You Naked, Long Shadows, Lineman Bob's Safety Corner , Horse Stories and a Favorite of mine-Clever Words bring Forth No Buttered Turnips.
There's a point I'm getting to and it's not going to be more whining or self promotion.  Bear with me.

A few weeks ago I 'm at the end of my rope of patience with winter.Tired of rising gas prices, routine, snow, ice and cold. I decide to repaint the basement in a works progress project for me. It's not like I have nothing to do. There's nothing I feel like doing.  Winter torpor.

Then, after I start the process of removing accumulated junk and reorganizing the basement, Murphy's Law assumes monumental proportions.  The opportunity to butcher and put up a year's supply of pork arises.  Next, I realize I've let my business slide.  There's a  minimum of fifteen cases of Czech glass beads stored in the barn, leftover from our brick and mortar days of running a modern day trading post. I need to get them on our website.  The transition librarian asks me to assist the library director in culling old books from the stacks- a minimum of a month's work at three hours per day.  The freshman governor of our state makes headlines around the country.  I Google his name and find that after four years and 96 credits at Marquette University, he drops out. More research and in an October article by Steve Schultze in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel,he writes of a $30 million dollar possible hole the Milwaukee County budget under former county executive(now Governor) Scott Walker. In the article a proposal is mentioned about a possibly illegal move to cut  pensions.

Oh, so many snowbirds and so little freezer space. ( A quote on a bumper sticker in Phoenix).

But, clever words bring forth no buttered turnips.  I have less than two hours to put the final coat of paint on the basement floor.   

More Skippy

I read a lot of fiction. We gave up on the Toob years ago.  My local librarian follows a popular trend highlighting mass market fiction. She stocks the first two mysteries by Stieg Larrson and follows up with the third in large print for the older generation of patrons.  Although the books are best sellers of amazing proportions, I find them tedious when descriptions get bogged down in police procedure. I can hear the author talking to himself.  When the action slows down he says to himself, "I think I'll paste in a murder, a shoot out or a savage beating." You can see a visual version of the same with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in Knight and Day.  My favorite part is of Cameron Diaz riding in front of Cruise on a motorbike.  She's facing him and shooting at bad guys following them. Ah, come on.

When I check the news, I find stuff worthy of a novel.  Guv Skippy ( a Steve Carell  lookalike) is duped into speaking candidly in a twenty minute telephone interview with a newspaperman.  The Guv thinks its a rich supporter. One of two billionaire brothers who support right wing causes and have contributed to the Guv's campaign.  Curiously the Guv feels no remorse in considering planting agitators in demonstrations against the new bill ending employees rights to negotiate.  He talks figuratively of taking a baseball bat to the knees of the  opponents.  On a more serious note, he could possibly sell Wisconsin power plants without bids which could be bought up on the cheap by the two brothers and resold at a premium raising already high energy costs.

I've got to check my supply of paper.  This could be my big chance for a novel.  I won't have to add excitement when the going gets bogged down. I'll begin with another Scott Walker, number #24 of the Washington Capitals being arrested and hauled downtown for questioning.  As the action begins, the Feds are looking for Scotty, right wing for a hockey team, masquerading as a state governor.   As two beefy agents pull his car over and pat him down, legs spread against his Toyota Terkel under suspicion of fraud and corruption Scotty aka Skippy Walker moans in distress, "What the puck."  "I didn't have sex with her.  I was just examining her for suspicious looking moles."

Red Bird

Cardinals in the green spruce with folk art "uncommon crow"

Yes, I took this shot through the kitchen window. No,  I'm not using the "snow' setting on my digital camera. Gawd knows what that would do.  Hand held, weird light, through a dirty window.  Could be the title of a B movie. I am truly sorry for the quality. The alternative would have been to traipse outside in my carpet slippers. That would cause the cardinals to scatter. The purpose of the photograph is to document an absurd number of red birds in the spruce tree next to the feeder. It's an all time record.  Whadda do on a snow filled winter day? I add the 17 cardinals to my list of awards.  Someday, I list all the dufus awards I give myself. 

Actually there's lots and lots of work. 

Enough to make me feel guilty about being at the keyboard.  I finally got my truck running.  Dawn drives me to the bank to withdraw a wad of cash to pay for a new clutch and ball joint.  When we pull into the drive-thru  there are five cars waiting in all three lanes.  Weird for a Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 pm in a town of 4,000.  Mandy, my dog, is bummed. We usually go to the window with the drawer.  She knows the teller by sight and climbs in my lap, sticks her head out the window and does a doggie version of "Where's the biscuit?" We're in the far lane hidden by a monster red pick-up.  The mic says "hello".  Then, "Are you Laura?"  Dawn says, "No I'm Dawn."  The check is drawn on my account.  Dawn points this out to the teller.  "He writes his 'R's' in a weird way," she says.  When the pneumatic tube shoots my cash back, she gives me $680 in small bills.  "Jeez," I utter.

It's a short drive to the mechanic.   After getting Ms.Mandy into the truck , I walk into the office where my mechanic sits behind his counter.  To add insult to injury he tells me that my clutch came apart in pieces.  His son shows me the damage.  I'd been driving the truck in deep snow between the house and wood shed.  Yes, I rode the clutch too hard.  No, it wasn't my fault.  In the short span of thirty yards letting the clutch out fully means crashing into A. the maple tree B. the woodshed or C. the woodshed.  Besides, the clutch actually went out after a sixteen mile round trip to Viroqua. 

This is suspicious.  Another chapter in  Tales of Woo Woo.  Why would the clutch give out after I drove it down highway 131 and US highway 14 ?  Supposedly, I overheated the clutch( 400 degrees F) and the steam from the deep snow caused it to shatter.  When I get to the entrance of our driveway, a dead-end town road, it won't do into gear.  I coast down the slight hill and drift into a spot in front of the barn. I thank my guardians and power animals for the close call.

The truck's in the garage. I have to remove the old tonneau cover hardware so that I can install a barrier behind the rear window.  Yes, that was $227 for a new window, after an errant piece of firewood hits the right corner and turns the window into snowflakes.  The insurance covers anything above $250.  Then there was the bill for four new tires, four used rims because the old rims rusted out.  ...And the brakes. Yeah, that was another Woo Woo event.  We're hauling an empty 200 gallon oil tank to the dump at the top of Freymiller's Hill when the brakes give out.

I'm still in the basement waterproofing.  After I empty the wood bin, I can seal that wall and finish the basement floor.  In the afternoon, I work at the library culling books.  My library angel tells me that there are 24 sections to examine and discard.  We do one per afternoon.  In between helping patrons with computer problems, answering the phone, wiping up the floors from drift tracked in, my 80+ year old angel keeps up a steady stream of verbiage about each and every book. The person designated to succeed her in less than two years prints off a 27 page list of criteria.  My list is as follows. If the pages are yellow, and the book is over 30 years old, never been taken out, a steamy romance novel with a muscular man naked from the waist up holding a woman swooning with ample exposed bosom and  paperback-out it goes.

With every comment, my library angel keeps up a steady hum of no particular tune to fill in the spaces.  A month of this could be worse than Dubya's water-boarding torture. It's like driving with Jorge when he clicks his cell phone belt clip repeatedly.

 

Skippy

Jorge: "Hey, you want to make a ton of money real quick?"

Me: "What's the catch?  Will I end up in jail?"

Jorge: "Load up your truck with bricks."

Me: "Why bricks?"

Jorge:" We can sell 'em in Madison(the state capitol) and make a bundle."

Jorge is pulling into his pole barn when I call with a plumbing emergency.  Bob the plumber along with the Mario Brothers attempts to saw a dead copper pipe in the former girl's bathroom in the basement.  The copper pipe formerly served the toilet which was removed prior to the purchase of the old school house.  The pipe dangles on a wall where I want to place a shelf for paint cans.  It's a small room with no hazardous equipment to start a fire, not that twenty odd cans of latex paint would catch fire.

I start sawing with my hacksaw.  When I finally hear the saw cut through the pipe, water starts to spurt out. Oh crap..  That's when I notice that there's a cap at the bottom of the loose pipe and a horizontal pipe near the bottom is shortened  and crimped .  The crimp is soldered shut.   Near the floor joists, in the open part of the basement is a shut off valve.  It's corroded open and won't budge. I quickly dismiss any thought of taking a pipe wrench to the valve.  It's part of a larger network of actual galvanized water supply pipe.

After numerous attempts to solder the cut closed, I call Jorge.He is unloading his SUV after attending a protest demonstration in Madison against the new bill proposed by Scott "Skippy" Walker, the new Governor. He promises to come over with plumbers putty. In the meantime I wind thin pipe thread tape around the cut. 

Less than a month in office Skippy's behind a bill that gives $150 million in tax cuts to the rich.  The 20 million surplus the previous governor left at the end of his term is now a huge deficit. In yet another attempt to create fiscal chaos emulating his term as Milwaukee's County Exec, Skippy, (Jorge's  ridiculing nickname for the Guv) backs a bill to end collective bargaing in Wisconsin.  Our state has enjoyed a long standing reputation for progressive reform with the likes of Fightin" Bob Lafollette. But every once in awhile some nut case like former grocery store owner Joe McCarthy pops up.

The Democrats in the state legislature walked out in disgust and a recall campaign of the Guv is in the works for 2012. www.change.org

Mandy can't believe the weather today!

A little before noon there's a flash of light and thunder.  Jorge says his dogs, Sam and Chase, wake from naps to the sound.  Sam being the dumber of the two starts barking.  Chase gets his name because that's what Jorge does quite often when he allows the dog to go out.  Chase manages to escape the outside pen even when he's tied to a tether line.  I'm thankful for my Blue Heeler who can be trusted to be outside on her own.  I've got two whistle versions for both animals when I want them to come inside.  Mandy loves the chance to barrel full tilt down the road when I encourage her with  "good girl" praise.  She leaves muddy paw prints on my jeans when she bounces off my leg.

I caution her to be careful today.  Early this morning it rained.  Both cars are outside and covered with ice.  Mid morning it started to hail.  By noon it was snowing large marshmallow flakes and on a short trip to the store for paint and eye drops it begins to sleet.On the bright side, on this date in 1926  the NWS says it was -40F in Richland Center.

2/14/2011

copyright 2011 Seven Roads Gallery Inc.

In between winter and spring there's a season not known to city folks.  It's called mud season.  This year it began a bit before Valentine's Day. On Sunday last the thermometer hit 52 degrees.  Downright balmy.  Today as Mandy and I hit the road, the sun is shinning, the sky is bright blue and it's 40 degrees in the shade on the north side of the house.  I guffaw when I see the road sign above.  Some wag with foresight not only decorated the highway sign at the corner, but also marked the sign warning of the upcoming intersection.

Mud season ain't pretty.  When I splash across the one lane, narrow bridge over Elk Creek on East River Road, I leave teardrops of mud over the entire right side of my car.  In the yard on the ridge at the Amish farm, all the sins of winter appear. Horse hockey and more.  Snow turns to slick ice and small lakes form in low spots.  I'm thankful the melt is slow and protracted.  The National Weather Service says there's three to four inches of water in that snow.  Rivers are expected to crest near flood stage.  They've broken it down to per cent probabilities.  The Kickapoo which runs by our house, they say, has a 90% probability of reaching the flood stage.  Jerry's garage in Viola will be moving the used cars off his lot in the next few weeks.

Mandy's urge to disguise herself to wild animals results in rolling in manure, mud and gore.  As I write, she's sulking on her "chair".  At first I wiped her down with warm, wet terry cloth towels.  I couldn't get all the dirt off the white parts of her fur.  I put her in the bath tub downstairs and poured a pitcher of warm water over her shoulders.  Next,  I resort to a mild shampoo.  As I lather her up and reach for the pitcher she leaps out of the tub and runs into the kitchen.  I wrestle her back to the bathroom which leaves my arms and jeans soaked.  This time, I remember to close the bathroom door.  "Stay", I tell her.  Making sharp pointy motions with my index finger, she looks at me as if I'm Attila the Hun and have just ransacked her village. 

Several escapes later, I'm drying her off with a bath towel and wiping up the bathroom floor.  Looking at the bright side, I rationalize that the bathroom floor hasn't been mopped for a while. She runs to the back door as if she's got urgent business. I let her out and she finds a sunny spot in front of the shed to dry off. Later I escort her inside, afraid that she'll find more crap to roll in.

My wife and I are sensible folk.  Years of holiday experiences teach us to avoid restaurant specials on New Year's Eve, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. It doesn't always work because there are other sensible people like us out there.  This year, however, we avoided crowds and pricey meals that line the pockets of local businesses. I take her out for wood fired brick oven pizza at a local bar.  Dawn lays a card and a small white box on my pillow.  Shoot. I forgot to get her a card.

Not wanting to appear the cad or another grumpy, busy  farmer I race to the gift shop in town for a single red rose.  The place is hopping.  There are at least a half dozen people working on Valentine's Day bouquets, balloons and floral decorations.  The man next to me holding a small child in his arms picks out a an arrangement of flowers in a cooler.  I gulp at the price.  $26.50. The single red rose I pick from a selection of roses the clerk holds up, garnished with a fern, Baby's Breath, red tissue and a tiny plastic bud vase costs me $4.22.  I've got three singles and change in my pocket.  I hand the older woman assisting customers a credit card, slightly embarrassed to be charging such a paltry amount.  When she walks away with my card, I fish in my pocket.  Counting the change and the three singles, I have exactly $4.20. The owner of the gift shop tells me not to worry about the two pennies, but when the older woman returns, she's got two slips in her hand and my card.  They've gone electronic since the last time I made a purchase.  The manual "kerchunker" as we called it when I first started in business is gone and they are online.  I scrape the bills and coins off the counter, thanking the ladies profusely.

On my way back home, the low fuel icon comes on.  Another, "shoot".  Turn around, drive the two miles back to the gas station in town where the price of fuel is higher than at the BP station I usually buy gas.I'll make a homemade card, give Dawn the rose in one of many jars stashed in the summer kitchen and hope for an inspiration about dinner.