Lately I never know where to look for Cliff, once he goes outside. The loggers left a lot of treetops laying around, enough to make plenty of wood for the stove in the shop for at least ten years. So Cliff has been cutting those walnut treetops into wood, and also getting rid of the limbs and branches left behind when he's done. As I've said before, he keeps this little acreage as neat as a public park, especially since he's retired.
So the other day I stepped outside and looked around for my husband and his ever-present John Deere tractor. I heard the chain saw and located him, and decided to take my camera down for a few pictures.
Well, the sound of the chain saw stopped. But I saw the tractor in the distance, down there by the quonset hut.
Yeah, he's just standing there, to the left of the quonset hut. Technically that isn't a quonset hut; it's half of an old grain bin Emmett Kolster gave us years ago. But it makes a good storage space for Cliff's valuable junk lumber, metal, barn tin, and old tires that he might someday find a use for.
Hmmm. This is not an unfamiliar scenario: When I see my husband looking intently at a tree, or group of trees, I know a tree will soon be falling. When I got to his side, I asked what he was pondering. He said he was thinking about taking all three of those trees down, but if he did, the one leaning toward the quonset hut would land on it. Then he pointed out another tree he was hesitating about cutting down because it's dead, and dead trees are liable to snap and fall in a different direction that you expect. In other words, they're dangerous. However, he figured if he did it a certain way....
That's when I butted in. "Cliff," I said, "you are really enjoying your retirement, aren't you?"
He agreed. Honestly, I've never seen the man as happy as he has been these past six months.
"Since you're having such a good time, surely you wouldn't think about doing something stupid that could kill you and end it all, would you?"
He agreed, and walked away from those trees. I try to remind him every day, "Don't do something stupid that could get you killed!"
Hey, don't we all know somebody who retired just in time to die? It happens all the time. In fact, I just heard about another one today.
So after our deep philosophical discussion, we headed up the hill so I could take pictures of a farm implement to put on Craigslist.
It's a spring-tooth harrow. Cliff measured it so he could include the width of the thing in the ad. So far nobody has called about it, but Craigslist is a funny thing: You can have something advertised on there for six months and never get a call or an email. Then you put the same ad on a few weeks later, and two or three people show up wanting it. It's all about the right person seeing the ad at the right time.
I'll leave all my readers with this word of advice: Don't do something stupid today that could get you killed. (Unless, of course, we're talking about riding a motorcycle. Some things are worth a little risk.)
