Sometimes, it's hard to judge the scope of the problem
Toolbox
Burr Morse - Published: November 10, 2008
Vermont is full of contrasts, like maple sugar and dill pickles, high peaks and deep valleys, winter and summer, smart folks and, well
let's just say the "judgmentally challenged." This writing concerns the latter group; my good wife, Betsy, is smarter'n a whip most of the time but once in a while she has a lapse that comes outa nowhere and affects you like a slap in the head. First of all, she's smart enough to work in the field of mental health which brings, in addition to a fair salary, a sense of sanity-by-osmosis
yes, I know, some would argue that point in my case. She's also great help on the farm thanks to a Mount Holly, Vermont heritage. Mount Holly is a place where the work ethic grows on trees and common sense is in the water. Betsy's never happier than when she's out in the woods with me and our Black Lab, Averill, throwin' wood onto a trailer. But once this summer, I also needed her help canning syrup.
Although I'm sure she would rather have returned to the woods, that Mount Holly work ethic led her, uncomplaining, to our canning room which is deep in the bowels of our store. She settled into canning like a duck floats on water but there was something about the murky pool at her feet that bothered her.
"You got a drain problem?" she asked. "Yes" I said
"damn thing's been bothering for years. I've run a small hardware store snake down there several times. Once I even hired that professional guy with his special roto-tool. It was a "monster snake" hooked up to a motor that propelled it, pulsing and twisting from the bottom end up the entire drain system. He really worked that thing hard, repeating the process several times before finally shaking his head in defeat and handing me a bill for $200.
I could see that Betsy wasn't buying a word of my suggestion that the drain couldn't be unplugged. When she asked if I had tried a plunger, gently replied that I didn't think a plunger was the right tool or the job. "Plunger indeed," I thought, "real men don't use plungers!" The next thing I knew, she had "lown" upstairs and returned with a plunger from the utility closet. She positioned it over the drain and began pumping like a mad woman. All of a sudden, she lifted the plunger and there, right before our eyes, one loud "slurrrrp" took away both the problem drain water and my pesky male righteousness. That drain has worked great ever since, thanks to one determined woman and a simple tool that "real men don't use!"
Before you assume that Betsy's intelligence is indelible, another of our recent work days revealed her "judgmentally challenged" side.
We started the day by working on the barn across the road that we've been tearing down. By mid-morning we had had enough of the barbs and slivers of old boards and beams and decided to head out to cut wood. Betsy worked relentlessly, tossing the smaller blocks and rolling the larger ones that I bobbed off with my chainsaw. After we had accumulated several sizable piles, we shifted our efforts to splitting. Betsy lifted the blocks onto the splitter while I worked the lever; converse to my plunger theory, "only real men handle hydraulic levers." About halfway through the day I noticed her limping slightly. She quickly passed off my queries saying, "I'm alright
got some kind of 'burr' in my sock
no big deal
I'll tend to it."
Toward the end of the day, we got a call that there were 300 bales of hay to pick up over at the neighbor's place and time was of the essence
rain was heading our way. We left the woods, hitched onto the trailer, and headed toward our next endeavor, lickity-split. When we arrived, we drove slowly out into the sea of square bales; you guessed it, I drove and Betsy threw 'em on! Her limp seemed to be worse but the approaching rainstorm chased us to finish. After three trips, we were finally done and ready to go home to hot showers and blessed rest.
As we entered the house, she went immediately to the chair close to the door. "Balls on a heifer, will you look at that." she said, using a good old Mount Holly expression, as she whipped off her sneakers.
There, protruding up the inside of her shoe, was a good sized nail that she had picked up earlier in the day while working on the old barn. Her face showed embarrassment as she showed me the bane of her work day. She threw the sneaker into a corner and carried on almost euphorically. "Boy," she said
"Life is really good without that nail sticking into my foot!"
We went on to other workdays after that, resuming the barn destruction and building bigger wood piles. Betsy and I laughed often about that nail episode and ended up accepting it as a metaphor for life; sometimes the obvious eludes us
a drain stays plugged for years in want of a simple plunger and work schedules sometimes trump pain. It's all part of the recipe here in Vermont, right along with the maple sugar, dill pickles and a dash of "judgmentally challenged."
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