The call of the garden ~ April 16, 1992

 David Heiller

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees buzzing. You name the spring cliché, and it was there last Thursday morning.

Oh gardens!
Little Claire lends a helping hand later in the season

And the garden was the biggest magnet of them all. I could feel its pull even as I knotted my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out the door for work.

I almost made it too. But the garden looked so inviting. I walked to it. A week of unseasonable weather had dried out the raised beds. I grabbed a clump of some nameless weed. It pulled out easily. I shook the dirt and earthworms from the roots, and tossed it on the grass.

I was hooked.

Back in the house, I slipped a pair of coveralls over my dress clothes. Tie and all. I grabbed the garden fork, and went back to the garden.

Loosen the soil, pull up the weed, shake off the dirt, toss the weed aside. Repeat. Repeat. Again. Again.

Malika helps to plant.

I found a carrot that had been passed over last fall. I wiped the dirt off with my hands, and ate it. It tasted as sweet and crisp as the ones last fall.

At first my movements felt stiff and awkward. I felt the damp soil soak through the coveralls, through my slacks, hitting my knees. My left knee groaned as I got up and down. It has pulled in one too many gallons of sap this spring. My back popped a few times, like plucked strings on a banjo.

My mind whirred: What am I doing. I should be selling ads, taking pictures, writing stories. I moved to a new bed, raked back the newspaper and straw mulch. The grass underneath was brown and dead, so I dug it up, widening the bed by half a foot, shaking out the rhizomes, tossing them aside.

Then there is the joy of the harvest.
Shelling peas with Noah.

My thoughts turned to Binti, our dog who died last fall. She should be here, I thought, sniffing in the dead grass, looking for mice. She always hung out at the garden when I worked there, keeping me company, and vice versa. This will be our first garden without her in 13 years.

My movements became more sure, more mechanical. I’m not sure why, but it always takes about half an hour of a job before I really feel sure of what I’m doing. The crick left my knee. My lower back muscles quit snapping. My mind lost its doubt. Work can wait a bit. The ads will get sold, the photos taken, the stories written.

A few honey bees buzzed past my ear. No worry about getting stung. They have other things on their minds. Hello, it’s spring, and I’m hungry. Praise the Lord and pass the flowers!

Collin helps plant peas.
 Everybody's got to get into the act!

The sun felt warm. A steady west wind blew over the garden, bringing the moist smell of fresh soil and manure. I started sweating, cool and damp, like spring soil.

Two hours, that’s all I needed of this. The garden looked fresh and new. I felt that way too. Then the coveralls got hung. I straightened my tie, and the ads got sold, the photos taken, the stories written. At least this one did.

The next day, it snowed six inches. Only in Minnesota. I took my coveralls from their hook, folded them, and put them in the closet a bit sadly. Thursday seemed like a dream. The garden looked like it did last November.

But deep down, I know better, and I bet a lot of you do too. It’s there, waiting, like a magnet. Soon it will be pulling us again.

Tis the season to be muddy ~ April 6, 1995

by David Heiller

This time of year, it’s hard to see beauty, when all you see is mud. Ten days ago people were raking their lawns and burning their fields. Roads were drying. Mud was disappearing. Peony shoots and crocuses were popping up.

Then Mother Nature dumped a foot of snow on us on Monday, March 27. At first it was fun, seeing all that snow. Some people saw the bright side. Maurice Bennett told me that the ground could use that extra moisture.

But the fun wore off. It didn’t take long, maybe 10 minutes. And now, after a week of slow melting, it’s mud season again.

Oh, mud.

Mud season. The floors need constant mopping. And as soon as you mop it, the dog sneaks in and leaves a fresh set of tracks.

Rugs get caked from wiping your feet. You could go mud-bogging on our rugs. Then they dry and you’ve got a gravel pit instead of a mud pit. You give the rug a good shake, and get sandblasted by grit.

There’s mud on the carpet, mud on the car seat, mud in the bathtub. You almost wear a safety line riding the tractor to the woods, hoping that you don’t get stuck, and that if you do, some hero on a horse will come along and pull you out before you disappear like a jungle explorer in quick sand.

I’ve only been stuck with the tractor one time this year. I made it through a stretch of craters, and was looking back with a proud smile when the front of the tractor found the biggest hole of all, about 18 inches deep.

Boom. We stopped with a jolt. I jacked the front end up, and shoved two two-by-sixes under the front wheels. Then I crawled out, and cut a new trail to the woods.

(You may think I deserve to get stuck, driving a tractor in the woods this time of year. Try hauling 600 gallons of sap a quarter mile by hand, and you’ll take your chances too.)

Last week my wife and I and our daughter were out in the woods collecting maple sap. Malika, age nine, headed home ahead of us. Then we heard her yell for help.

I knew immediately that she was stuck. It was just a little black spot on the grassy trail, but it was enough. She looked like a tar baby. First one foot had been sucked in, then when she tried to gain some purchase to pull it out, the other had followed suit. The La Brea Tar Pit couldn’t have held her any tighter. Mollie almost ended up alongside mastodons, bison, camels, and the giant ground sloth, which she sometimes resembles when it comes time to clean her room.

Rescuing Malika from the mud. 
Sometimes mud just gets the best of us.

I laughed and grabbed her around the chest and tried to lift her out. She didn’t budge. I squatted down like a weight lifter and pull again, using my legs and keeping my back straight. I can pull posts out of the ground with this stance. But I couldn’t move Mollie.

I did start to hear some of her muscles ping and pop. That’s when I stopped. I’m no King Solomon.

She stepped out of her boots, and I held her while Cindy worked the boots free. It took a while. Then Mollie put her boots back on and we made our way home.

I could go on about the mud, but what’s the point? And it could be worse. In California, whole mountains turn into mud and slide into the ocean.

Let’s just hope for some dry weather. No more 12-inch snow storms.

As Tennessee Ernie Ford once sang: “Some people say a man is made out of mud.”

He was right.

Some tricks of the married trade ~ April 4, 1996

by David Heiller

Does your household have domains? Our does. For example, the basement is my domain. Cindy doesn’t go down there at all. Maybe once a year, if she has to. That’s where the pump is, and the jars of pickles and cans of paint and dahlia bulbs and storm windows and a worm bed. And don’t forget the mice and spiders.

It has a dirt floor and fieldstone walls, and can only be entered through an outside cellar door, and it’s my domain. Lucky me.

Cindy has her own domains too. The kitchen, for example. That’s where she bakes bread and makes supper and keeps all those spices that I have never used.

Some domains we share, like the garden. Last spring I insulted a lady friend when I asked her husband if he would show me his garden. I thought it was his domain. His wife informed me that she worked in the garden too. So it was THEIR domain.

Some people may think of domains as sexist. They think if only Joe works in the shop fixing engines and welding broken haybines, then that’s sexist and wrong. Shouldn’t Josephine be allowed to do that too?

But it’s sexist only if Joe won’t let Josephine do it. Joe likes his space out there, and Josephine likes that he likes it, because chances are she sure as heck doesn’t want to work out there.

Tricks of the married trade... a lot like dancing.
The more you do it, the better you get!

A shrewd husband or wife can take physical domains a step beyond physical space. I make the firewood in our family, and the act of bringing in firewood is my domain. Now I’m passing the job to our 12-year-old son, and it’s getting to be his domain to bring in firewood.

We got pretty tired of that domain when it was 50 below zero last January.

Cindy uses this to her advantage. I might be in a hurry to go to work, and Cindy reminds me that the woodbox needs to be filled. “Can’t you do it?” I’ll ask. Then come the dreaded words, the words edged in black.

“That’s your domain.”

I’ve used them effectively too. The kids might be sick and need an aspirin or need to have their appendix removed or some other small problem. Cindy will ask if I can check on them. Then she cringes and waits for the words of doom.

“That’s your domain.”

The classic family photo.
If you are a parent you had better be able to laugh.

Ouch.

Domains are related to two other terms of a good marriage: “I’ll let you do that,” and “You’re better at it.”

The first one has to be played like chess. It involves perfect timing and strategy. We used to use it the most when one of the kids had dirty diapers. Changing diapers is a shared domain. (See, I told you I wasn’t sexist.)

So if one person said, “Hey, Noah’s diapers need changing,” the other person would say, “I’ll let you do that.” Then the first person, who had sensed the droopy drawers in the first place, would be foiled and have to do it because the other person was “letting” them do it. Gee thanks.

“I’ll let you do that” can be used for many occasions in shared domains:

“Cindy, the floor needs sweeping.”

“I’ll let you do that.”

“Dave, the dishes really need to be washed.”

“I’ll let you do that.”

Try it sometime. But remember, it takes a lot of practice. We’ve been at it for almost 16 years, and it still doesn’t always work.

But if it doesn’t work, go to Plan B: “You’re better at it.” This simple sentence serves as a compliment to the other person, yet effectively passes the buck.

For example, we get milk from a local dairy farmer, and we separate the cream after it sits for a few hours. I don’t do as thorough a job as Cindy, because I like it richer. (“He likes milk and it shows.”)

So if she wants me to separate the cream on a busy morning with hot cereal on the table (by the way, making cereal is MY domain) and the kids waiting for milk, I can honestly say, “You’re better at it.”

Or if we have company coming and need to vacuum the living room really well, I can say to Cindy in all honesty, “You’re better at it,” because she is. This doesn’t always work either, but it’s worth a try.

If you are really desperate, you can say, “I’ll let you do that. You’re better at it.”

But don’t expect a big thank you.

Something to whistle about ~ April 17, 2003

David Heiller

“I only saw wood in April,” Ken declared on Saturday morning, April 5. “And May if I have to.”

He made that declaration to Deane and me before we got going on a pile of black ash logs. He was saying it tongue in cheek, like he often does. But there was a grain of truth to it also, which I came to appreciate over the next two days.

“What’s a sawmill like this worth?” I asked him as he was assembling his Wood Mizer LT40.

“Catch me on the right day and I’ll give it to you,” he answered with a smile.

We worked for the next two days with that sawmill, and I don’t think he would have given it away, because it worked like a Swiss clock, and it was run by a master.

Deane and his crane lifted our
 black ash logs onto Ken's sawmill.

Deane Hillbrand and Ken Peter worked as a team. It was a joy to be a small part of it. Deane would lift eight-foot-long logs onto the sawmill with his crane, and Ken would saw them up with his sawmill. I had the challenging job of lifting off the slabs and boards and piling them up.

Deane always stayed slightly ahead of Ken, so that we never had to stop to wait for a log. We only stopped for lunch or coffee, or when a blade broke or became too dull to use.

It was interesting to see how efficient Ken was with his sawmill. He’s done it for many years, so he has it down to a science. He ex­plained how he did it, but it was too complicated for this newspaper editor.

Level the log. Make a top cut. Flip the log. Measure up from the center. Make another cut. (Or two?) Level the log. Flip 180 degrees. (Or was that 90 degrees?) Cut more. Flip again. Cut. Measure. Cut.

Got it? I didn’t. After watching him do it for two days, I sort of saw the method. All I know is that each board was either 10, eight, six, or four inches wide when it was finished, except for the stair treads, which were two inches thick and 12 inches wide. These came from the biggest logs, and we ended up with 13 of them.

Ken at the helm of his sawmill.

When Ken needed to flip a log over on his sawmill, he would either hook it with his peavey, or more often, he would wrap his arm around it and rotate it that way. He made it look easy, but every time I tried it, I could feel my back send out distress signals.

Ken’s strength came out even more when we were putting slabs under the tires of Deane’s trailer so that they wouldn’t sink into the ground. Rather than back the trailer onto the slabs, Ken just lifted up each end of the trailer and I slid the slab under the wheel. Easy. No sweat.

The boards didn’t look like much to me. But to Ken and Deane, who make their living working with logs and boards and timbers, it was good-looking wood, and that made me feel good.

On a couple occasions, a clear, light board would come off the saw, and Ken would give a whistle of respect. On one stair tread, Deane even stopped what he was doing and admired the piece like it was a Picasso.

David and friend Terrance in our living room.
You can see the the woodworking: that is the black
 ash that Deane and Ken and David put took out
 of our woods in Sturgeon Lake, 
and sawed on Ken's sawmill. 
I got my hands into the mix when I sanded, stained,
 and finished each an every piece of wood in our home. 
 

Ken and Deane did one other thing right. They made me feel like I was pulling my weight. Ken said to me a couple times, “You’re doing all the work.” That wasn’t close to true, but I didn’t mind hearing it. Deane said if I hadn’t been helping, it would have taken a lot longer. I felt part of the team.

We finished up on Sunday evening. The saw had quit its whining. Our ears were free to hear the silence of a fine April day. You appreciate silence after running a sawmill. The air was so clear and brisk that I said to Ken, “I can see why you like to saw wood in April.” He gave me a look that said he knew I got it.

Ken scaled out the pile of wood, writing figures in a notebook, and proclaimed the grand total: 2,143 board feet. He calculated the weight at 10,715 pounds. And I had stacked every pound.

Maybe Ken was right after all.

The wood will go into a new house for Cindy and me. When it does, when it is smooth and, rich, I’ll see what Deane and Ken were whistling about, and I’ll be reminded of two fine men and a hard day’s work.