When it rains…

As I sat down to write this week’s post, I turned over several ideas in my head.  I thought about doing one called, “When it rains, it pours.”  I thought of “Dear Deer, What can the Matter Be?”  I haven’t written about our cabin near Yellville, Arkansas in a while so I could do one named, “A Taste of Sweetwater.”  I mulled over one entitled, “A Moving Story” or another named “Stuck in a Rut.”  How about, “The Meth-matician,” or maybe “Trailer of Tears?”

Better yet, I’ll just blend all of the ideas together and name the post, “When it rains…”

Yeah, that about covers it.

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My regular readers know how frustrated I was after I lost my mother and  the decision was made without my consent to break-up and sell the farm which my parents and I bought almost fifty years ago.  Annie and I were able to purchase the little piece of land that our house was on but living there was not nearly as comfortable as it always had been.  Sitting outside and seeing all the places where so much of my parents, my, Annie’s and our sons’ lives had been lived, and knowing I had no say in what was done with the other 76-plus acres turned pleasant memories into painful reminders. 

The new owners started letting other people hunt on the property and one forbade me to hunt at all on his part.  It’s their right and I really don’t blame them for their choices but it just made living there that much more uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and I slowly began to adjust, at least a little, as time passed.

Annie and I had a long-established tradition of sitting together on the front porch when we could and drinking our morning coffee.  There we sat and relaxed whenever we got a chance.  Before the sale we started to notice more and more vehicles driving too fast in front of the house.  It seemed like an increasing number of them had louder and louder exhaust too.

We noticed that the vehicles would often speed up the hill, then rocket back down just a few minutes later.  One even stopped out front while we were sitting on the porch and yelled, waved, and laughed at us.  It could be they were just being playfully friendly, but it didn’t sound like it.

Yeah.

Before we sold the property, I checked my game cams and found that one of the cameras had captured a photo of a skinny, bedraggled stranger who walked in front of it.  After the sale, one of the new landowners who I had known for several decades found people wandering the property on two different occasions.  He described them as bewildered and lost, just meandering around the old farm.  Then one of the long-time neighbors called to tell us that another neighbor had started selling meth out of his trailer.  A few weeks later we saw what appeared to be a police raid taking place at that trailer.  Things were quiet for a while but the suspected meth dealer was back in the trailer before long.

The once peaceful farm was no longer a place we wanted our grandchildren to hike and play…and definitely not inherit. 

It was time for Annie and me to leave our home of over 20 years…the property my parents and I had bought several decades before that.

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Despite how I felt about losing much of my hunting rights all the people who bought pieces of the farm were very friendly, good people.  We liked all of them.

One of the couples had shown interest in buying our remaining 3 ½ acres if we ever decided to sell it.  It adjoined their piece of the old farm.  They had a great family, younger than ours, and treated us the way neighbors are supposed to treat each other. 

Heck, selling to them would actually re-combine part of the old place.

Annie and I talked things over for a long time, then shot the couple a price.  They jumped at it.  No dickering.

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In the meantime we had been looking at properties for our next home.  We looked at some nice ones, but none were quite right.  We just couldn’t quite find a place where property, location, and buildings all fit our wants and needs.

One of Annie’s work friends, Kathy, invited us to visit her and her husband, David, in Piggott, Arkansas.  Kathy had some other friends, Jeremi and Erica Wicker, who had just decided to sell their place.

Kathy thought we might like it.  She took us to see the place.  There we met the young owners and found them to be open, honest, likeable folks.

The place is four acres with a new machine shed, a recently remodeled brick house that is almost as big as the one we raised our six boys in, and a couple older outbuildings.  It is the only home on a dead-end gravel road and about a mile out of town.  It has city power, gas, water, and sewer.  In addition it has a year-old above-ground swimming pool and a hot tub.  The pasture behind the house and on two sides of the machine shed is thick and good and has been recently fenced and cross-fenced.  The year-old machine shed has loafing sheds on two sides and a carport type lean-to shed with room for two vehicles and the tractor on a third.  Heck, it even has an electric hookup for a camper in case someone who owns one wants to come visit us. 

Yes, little sister Deonna, I’m talking directly to you.

The Wickers were asking exactly the same price as we had agreed to sell our old place for.

I don’t know if it would qualify as dickering, but we asked Jeremi if he would throw in his tractor (a low-hours John Deere 1023e with a bucket loader) at that price.

He agreed and we quickly agreed to the purchase.

The big changes taking place in our lives were going surprisingly well.  There were a lot of upsides…but then came the inevitable downs…and they kept coming.

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As you probably know, Annie and I both had COVID at the beginning of the year.  Regardless of that fact, my work had been emphasizing the need for all employees to get the vaccine.  Annie and I both got the first of the necessary two shots and I had some very slight negative side effects.  Annie’s were worse, but she recovered quickly.  When the time came to get our second shot, the situation was reversed.  Annie barely even noticed, whereas I felt bad for weeks afterwards, almost as bad as I did when I had the disease itself.  It was hard to get anything done because I feel so bad.

Good timing, huh.

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This year Annie and I made plans to spend part of Grandkids’ Week at Sweetwater.  All of our grands love our little cabin and camp.  They love to hike in the woods, play in the creek, and roast s’mores by the campfire…almost as much as we do.

What they don’t like, although my wife and I tolerate it, is not having indoor plumbing.  We’ve been using a five-gallon bucket lined with a trash bag and topped with a cheap camping toilet seat. Our descendents find that much too barbaric.  Well, Travis and Patrick came in a few months ago and helped us redo all the old plumbing in the cabin and update the wiring among other things.  What we still lack is the system set up to pump the cold, pure water from the spring up to the house, which would allow us to have easy access to drinking water, take showers, and have a flushing toilet.

I’ve got pretty much everything I need to do that; I just need to get out to Sweetwater with enough time and energy to assemble my design.

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We already had everything set up with our sons and their spouses to have the grandkids for a certain week this year.  As things have played out, that week turns out to be about a month after the move to our new home. 

To clarify all that, we have to pack up several decades of accumulated “stuff,” move it to the new place, then unpack it and put it away.  At the same time we have to get the swimming pool and hot tub ready for the little ones’ visit.  That includes the railing I want to build around the deck beside both to keep eager little people from going swimming without adult supervision.

So, we’ve got all that to do in Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas in a month and, at the same time I want to get water to the cabin in Northwest Arkansas.

That would be plenty for most grandparents.

But wait, there’s more.

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Annie and I went to Sweetwater for Mothers’ Day weekend and oldest son, Scotty said he was going to bring his awesome children, Pfieffer and Payden, to visit. 

As my wife and I drove in, we found that the plentiful rains the area had been deluged with over the previous month or so had washed big ruts in the ¼ mile driveway that winds its way through the woods to Sweetwater.  We didn’t have a lot of trouble driving our four-wheel-drive pickup in, but it took time and wasn’t easy either.  The problem is that we won’t be in the four-wheel-drive when we transport the grands to the cabin.  Nope, we’ll have to drive them in the van so there’s enough room for all of them.  Just to make sure we got the point about the ruts, Mother Nature celebrated Mothers’ Day by dumping a flood on us.  The good thing is that I got to see that the dam our son, Bobby, and I had built for the spring would have to be built higher…a lot higher.  The thousands of gallons of water rushing down our creek was also pouring over the dam.

The worse thing is that I would have to build the dam higher BEFORE grandkids week, and while we are also moving into our new home if I want our water system ready for the young’uns.

That should be enough on anybody’s plate, but no-o-o-o-o, not us.

Oh, yes, there’s more.

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One week to the day before we were scheduled to close the deal on the new place, I headed to work.  That day and three more work days and I would never have to drive that route to work again.  As I turned west onto County Road 102,  which would take me past Bethany Church, it occurred to me that, at the bottom of the drawahead was the spot where our son, J.B., hit a deer.  The young buck  had leaped out into the road ahead of him about a decade ago.

That’s why I drive extra carefully down that stretch of road.  With eyes peeled I drove well under the speed limit.

I hit a deer anyway.

Anti-lock brake systems work pretty well, but when you try to push your foot through the floorboard, your brakes can still lock up.  Think Fred Flintstone and you get the idea.

Yeah.

At the bottom of the dip, where a ditch crosses underneath from north to south to join the deeper ditch running on the south side, I caught a flash of brownish-tan in the thick grass.  I honestly don’t know if I hit the brakes just before or just after I hit the deer; she was that close.

Yeah.

I swear the doe hit the pavement with her hooves just as I hit her, then leaped as we immediately collided again, sending her flying up and into the grass on the south side of the road.

I shifted my poor car into park and turned on my flashers before stepping out onto the roadway.  I could see the sleek doe on the side of the road with her head up, looking around as if trying to figure out what had just happened to her.  I stepped toward her, uttering some lame apology about being sorry I’d just hit her.  I wanted to see how badly she was hurt but figured she was either dying or I’d have to put her out of her misery.  Heck, she had been sent flying at least 30 feet by the collision!

Passing the left front corner of my beautiful car, I took in the damage.  The left front fender, headlight assembly including lens, bumper, and hood would all have to be replaced.

A noise made me turn back toward the doe.  She had leaped up and was trotting up the road away from me.  She crossed to the north side of the road, then turned and re-crossed at an angle and disappeared into the drive leading to a pasture gate on the south side.

I never saw so much as a limp.

It’s interesting that I had been driving slowly enough that I didn’t seriously injure the doe, yet still fast enough to do (we later found out) $3500 in damage to my car.  I guess God builds ‘em better than Detroit.

Thank goodness for insurance.

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Upon examination, I found my car drivable and moved it to a safe place to call the highway patrol.  The officer took a report and told me to go on to work if it was safe to do so. 

It was, one eyed car and all.  I even got to work on time.

The next day was Saturday.  With an appointment to get my car looked at on Monday, we took the pickup with another trailer-load down to the new place, where we met son, Andy, and his little four-year-old beauty, Harper.  Andy backed the trailer in to the pool, where we unloaded the deck furniture from the back of the trailer.  Annie and Harper stayed to work on cleaning the pool while Andy and I pulled the trailer into the machine shed.

Later that afternoon, we were all in the shed when I suddenly noticed that Harper had disappeared.  I went over to the deck by the pool where I found Harper sitting on the deck by the pool, petting the Wickers’ pretty black and white cat.

“Honey,” I implored my little sweetheart, “no little people are ever allowed on the deck to the swimming pool without adults.  Understand?”

My little blue eyed, blond haired beauty looked up at me with moist eyes and pouted, “But, Pa, I was just petting the kitty.”

I steeled my heart. “You can pet the kitty while I’m up here with you, but if Granny and Pa catch little people up her without at least one grown up, nobody will be allowed up here at all, and that means no swimming either.”

Point made, Pa took his sweetie’s hand and went back to pet the kitty.

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Sunday Patrick and Christa came to visit and see the new place.

Annie and I had taken a truck and trailer load of stuff with us.  We unloaded it in a corner of the machine shed that Jeremi had cleared out for us.  Then we headed home…uh, to the old home.

As we pulled in with the empty trailer a weird hopping movement from it grabbed my attention.  I didn’t remember our driveway being that bumpy.  Annie stopped the truck and I got out.  Looking back at the trailer told me the story.  The right, rear wheel was sticking out at an angle and farther back than it should have been.  I crawled underneath and found that a spacer between the “U” bolts and the leaf springs had fallen out.

The trailer was out of commission until we could get it fixed.

Dang it.

I texted Zeke Barrett, the real estate agent who had helped us through the process of acquiring Sweetwater.  I knew he was very familiar with the area.  I told Zeke that I needed someone who could repair the driveway to our camp, and wouldn’t charge us the proverbial arm and a leg.  He gave me the name of Scott Lippe, a young man who has done quite a bit of work for him.  Zeke recommended him highly.

With a name like Scott, he had to be good, right?

Annie called Scott, and asked him about some ideas I had for slowing the inevitable deterioration of the driveway through the woods and steep hills.  He said he could do what we wanted as soon as he had a few days of dry weather.  We agreed to meet the next weekend to pay him for the work he would do in the interim.

When we got to our camp at the end of the week, Annie mowed the open area around the cabin while I worked on placing four railroad ties which would eventually (soon I hoped) hold the 275 gallon IBC (intermediate bulk container) tote I planned to use to hold the water pumped up from the spring until a second pump could pressurize it and pump it into the house.

The first post hole I dug went down so fast it amazed me.  The second and third were almost as easy to dig too.  The final one went down quickly…for about the first foot, whereupon the loud scraping and clanging told me I’d hit rock.  The post hole digger exposed a hundred-plus pound rock as big as my chest.  My six-foot long, tracked vehicle prybar enabled me to work it loose.  I bent my old back and pulled the rock out of the hole.  I dropped it to the ground, where it started a one-rock avalanche to its new home, downhill, past the cabin, across the narrow yard, and into the creek.

Oh, well, if I ever need a hundred-pound rock, I’ll know where to find one.

After I dug the holes, I hoisted the heavy railroad ties into their places, then attached lumber to hold them vertical and square.  After that, premix concrete was poured down each hole along with water carried up from the creek.  Good, strong, appropriate length sticks did the job of a much more expensive concrete mixer.  To finish that part of the job, I scratched, “S.M. + A.M. 2021” into the concrete at the top of the biggest hole…yep, number four above.  Hey, the job’s not finished until the paperwork is done.  I suppose you can stretch concrete to fill the paper role…if you write on it.  Anyway, for about the umpteenth time in the last 38 years, I have permanently expressed my undying love for my sweetheart.

Annie and I were definitely ready for showers, dinner, and bed after the day we’d put in.  I had partially filled one of  the five-gallon plastic bag solar showers that morning and left it on the tailgate of the pickup to warm.  Now I carried the bag up the steps and hung them over the porch railing.  That raised it high enough so we could take turns bathing under the moderately warm water rather than the 58 degree spring water we had used when we first bought the place.

I let my bride shower first, knowing she liked her showers hotter than I do, and knowing she would probably use more water than I would.  I knew there would be enough left for me.  And there was…almost.

I tried to be judicious in my ablutions.  Despite my efforts, I had just gotten a good start on the final rinse when the water running from the shower head slowed to just a few random drips…leaving soap in places that could make sleeping less pleasant.

I streaked like a high school kid from the 1970s down to the frigid stream and finished rinsing…fast.  Then I streaked again, back to the cabin.  Well, as fast as an overweight late-middle-aged man can hobble barefoot across rocky ground and up a steep hill.

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It was a good thing we had decided that we would forgo sunrise showers because our morning was interrupted by the sound of a truck coming down the driveway through the woods.  It was Scott Lippe, coming to pick up his check for the work he’d done on the driveway.

We commended the young man for his work and discussed plans for improving the driveway even more, then sent him on his way so we could head for home.

With grandkids’ week coming up, the house is basically ready, as is the pool.  The hot tub will be soon, and I’m ready to make the trip back to Sweetwater to work some more on the water system…at least finish it enough that we don’t have to worry about visitors driving up to find a half-dozen naked pygmies running back and forth between the creek and the cabin, screaming their “freezing hiney” cries.

The Yellville newspaper would have a field day with that story.

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Want a little more fun out of this post?  Go back to the first paragraph and see if all the title ideas were actually combined in this post,

Dang, I’m good.

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