Monthly Archives: March 2012

Middle age crazy

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Jerry Lee Lewis sang about a man who had become, “middle age crazy.”
In the song, a man feels his age and attempts to recapture his youth
by trading his Oldsmobile for a “new Porsche car.” At the time the
essence of the song was that a mid-life crisis occurred at about 40
years of age, however that was almost forty years ago. I believe 46
is the new 40 as the new standard for middle-age craziness.

First off, I didn’t trade my truck at life’s mid-point and owning a
sports car in the land of wash board gravel roads and snow would be
like sporting a snowmobile in Jamaica. My history is one old pick-ups, older tractors
and using my own resourcefulness to accomplish any task in life.
I save money by using old equipment that relies heavily on my
acceptance, patience and ability to either fix it or pay to have it
repaired. I’ve seen myself as a spendthrift. The truth is, by the
time I buy equipment and then fix it to the point it actually works,
I’ve spent close to the point of buying what I really wanted in the
first place.

Maybe my middle-age crazy wasn’t so much a desperate grab for my lost
youth as an epiphany; an epiphany that I was wasting my time on junk.
Perhaps I should just accept the responsibility and cost of what I
needed to be productive and then buy it. After which I could trust in my own ability to make these

purchases pay off.

I bought a new snow plow-not just any plow either. I didn’t buy an
old plow, I didn’t buy an old truck with a plow then swap the plow
onto mine then sell the other one to pay for the whole mess (which
I’ve done.) I didn’t even purchase something cheap to just “get by.”
I bought a fire engine red, cow-catcher shaped, brand-new,
smart-coated, snowdrift-defeating Boss v-plow. Logic was thrown out
the window as this purchase occurred at the tail end of winter and
there was little or no snow upon which to draw blood for my new
sword.

It is said that if you feel there is no purpose in your work then you
should buy something expensive for which you have to pay. I guess
pride and purpose must walk a parallel path. I do like the way the plow looks

on my truck; I had the pair staged perfectly so they where the first thing Lisa

saw when she arrived home that day. I’d already felt my work was purposeful but now it will be
easier to arrive at work when we have bad roads. It is the first
piece of equipment I’ve ever owned that I would take to a parade. I
guess pride will be the next deadly sin I focus on prior to turning
47.

Perhaps I never became crazed from middle age; perhaps I got
practical-and more responsible. My age has made me focused
enough to know when I truly need something rather than just want it.
I also decided somewhere along the line to be responsible for my bold
actions, rather than to be safe and unsatisfied with the outcome.
A new Porsche car in the garage might say youth lives in its owners heart, however a well-plowed driveway says a good man lives on the farm.

Paddling through life

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I keep an eye out for talent and deeper meaning; talent because it should be recognized and deeper meaning because it makes life easier to understand. This week I found both.

Jim Seibel's paddle

 

Jim Seibel likes to canoe a bit. The tools of this trade are simple,

a canoe and a paddle. However, he and some friends like to do a fair

amount of miles and need the best and lightest equipment available.

This means spend a lot of money or make it yourself.

 

I’ve known Seibel a few years and always picture him on one of those

“Shop smith” commercials or on the cover of “Popular Mechanics.” It’s

fair to assume that Jim would use his considerable talents to make

his own equipment, although he’s too modest to say so.

 

Seibel’s canoe paddle’s are part science and part folk-art, beautiful

and useful. The paddles are strips of wood glued together then bent

at a 14 degree angle at the point where the handle becomes part of

the paddle or “beaver tail.” These laminations are only 3/16 of an

inch thick so that they may be pliable enough to bend. A layer each

of walnut, maple and aspen are repeatedly joined with waterproof glue

into a sandwich to be bent, routered and sanded into a finished

product.

 

The 14 degree bend above the paddle is for a purpose, efficiency. At

this degree the paddle enters the stream at a 90 degree angle which

presents the full face of the beaver tail to the water for better

power. A straight paddle presents its full face only rarely and

lacks the efficiency of the paddles Jim creates.

 

The beaver tail and handle are now all one continuous unit, jig-bent

and ready for Seibel to remove all the wood that isn’t needed. The

whole paddle is thicker towards its center line for strength and

thinner further from center for weight. The paddle weighs only one

pound which is due to router and sander works that takes many hours.

The difference between a one pound paddle and a two pound paddle can

only be realized after several miles of effort in the proving ground

of a backwater stream. Seibel’s first paddle was double the weight

but experience and confidence have shown Jim what to keep in and what

to remove.

 

I thought about this whole process and really admired the

craftsmanship. I also thought about how what we each create tells our

own story. Seibel has probably spent more time building the paddles

than he’ll spend using them on the first trip. What he is doing is

investing effort and delaying gratitude until a time when his efforts

will reward him both for his efforts and patience-something for which

fewer people have the character to emulate.

 

In life, we seem to carry so much extra baggage. We hold grudges,

bare misconceptions and carry prejudices which are untrue and make us

tired over the long haul. As we get older and more confident,

successful people whittle away at their life and remove the extra

weight they bare and keep only that which makes them strong. Just

like Seibel’s canoe paddles, which carried more heft at inception but

can accomplish as much or more at half their original weight.

 

Nice work, Jim and thanks for the story, I guess a person can learn a

lot from a well-made canoe paddle.

 

Paddle side view

 

 

Letter to Dave

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I just returned from a trip to see our brother, Darrel. Darrel is
repairing my old skid steer and very soon will have it in
working condition. Like most of my farm equipment, the skid steer
occupies that very axis of where machinery is too new to be antique
and too old to be of much worth. However it is mine and does the job
so Darrel is re-animating it at his shop.

During my excursion to Argyle, I noticed a feature common to many farm
fields in the area-miniature ring dikes. I’ve seen a few of them
around home, but even more as I traveled north. People are taking the
spoil from ditch cleaning and then building up little levees at the
perimeter of the lowest part of the field. I guess it wasn’t so bad
to have some wet spots a few years ago, however every little patch of
land must be productive now as inputs are so costly and commodities
are high; so much to lose and so much to gain.

It was nice to have you stop by last week-end. I really appreciate
the visit and the nice, intricate hay trolley which was included in
your visit. It will soon join its fellow retirees which hang from the
edge of our porch, Dave.

Lisa and I recently saw a report on the news that confirmed what
common sense dictates; we have made our children less able to protect
themselves from illness. The report told of a study being done that
already indicates the increased incidence of asthma in children is due in
part to the overuse of antibiotic soap. We have eliminated every
microbe in our houses to the point where a child’s immune system has
no opportunity to learn which microbe is harmful and which benign.
Instead, some children now simply react to much of what they breathe
as though it were a harmful invader. This reaction manifests itself as
asthma.

Pete Erickson and I stood in the entry to Fleet a few years ago and
talked about how eating a little dirt with your freshly picked
vegetables helped your immune system, this recent study agreed with us and
used our words almost to the letter. I’ve always known that cows pass
on their immunities through the milk they provide the calf. Those
immunities are fairly specific to the area in which they live because their bodies
learn the immunity by the intake of microbes which exist around their
home. I guess cattle are too smart to drench themselves in
antibacterial soap.

I do have a project on the horizon, Dave. I’ve always wanted a
crowding tub for cattle work. The only thing I lack is the capital to
accomplish this expensive task. I recently decided to use an old
grain bin instead. The sheets are perfectly circular and quite rugged
plus I can lay them out and mark the spots to dig holes for treated
posts to stabilize the structure. Like most of my projects, it will
be labor intense but I am better busy than not, and my brand of
unskilled labor comes fairly cheap.

You’re little bro’

Fit to Fight

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I just got done watching an installment on a television morning show. The title of the piece was “Unfit to Fight.” It told how a high percentage of America’s population does not fit into the military definition of a person who is fit to enter the service. It hit a nerve with me and I wanted to tell you my story.

 

In 1983 I joined the Army National Guard. I waited until after my eighteenth birthday because my parents thought (correctly) that it wasn’t a good fit for me so I had to wait until I was an adult and could legally sign a contract. I wanted to make the Army a career. I had taken the pre-enlistment test and was told I was qualified for any job within the services so my future seemed pretty wide open. I thought I would start in the National Guard and then progress into the Army if I liked it.

 

I spent my senior year in high school going to monthly drill and planned to leave for basic training the following June. I was 5’8” and 220 pounds so I did not meet the military height/weight chart however they had measured the fat content of my body and I was only one pound too high. I visited the bathroom, came back, and was right on. My recruiter told me basic training would go fine.

 

It did not go fine. It the processing station I was weighed and a Sargent looked at me like I had three heads and said “what do you think you’re doing here.” I told him I’d been pinch tested and that my recruiter said no to worry about the height versus weight chart. The Sargent told me, “son, you’re recruiter $%*@%^$ you.” (my recruiter apologized several years later, I bare no hard feelings toward him.)

 

At the time I was able to do 114 sit-ups in two minutes and seventy push-ups in the same amount of time. I lifted weights constantly and had a youthful lack of fear. I could run, shoot a gun and was aggressive. The only thing I couldn’t do was fit into a chart which I’d been told was derived from something an insurance company had produced in the mid forties. I came home and was put on the “chub club” back at the local armory while men with pipe stem legs, and pigeon chests that blended into belly’s that strained their uniforms were seen as healthy because they fit the chart.

 

Very few athletic records stand from the the 1940′s. The reason is people have become bigger and stronger. An athlete from seven decades ago might have weighed 170 pounds and ran a six second forty yard dash, they would fit the military chart for a healthy person. Today a contemporary athlete might weigh one hundred pounds more and be a good second or more faster in the forty. This contemporary athlete would not fit the military height/weight chart as “fit to serve” and would have joined me in the “chub club.” Superior strength and speed come about because of increased muscle which increases the weight of your body. Does anyone really believe that a stronger, faster human is less effective because he or she does not fit a “health chart” drawn out by some actuarial whose life expectancy was a whole fifteen years shorter than the average man lives today? Am I the only one who sees the irony of this situation?

 

I know more and more people are too fat today, and therefore unable to serve in the military . However, there are many more people who carry a dense mixture of muscle, bone and patriotism who will be passed over because of some chart. I was unable to serve my country not because I wasn’t strong enough, smart enough or courageous enough. A chart said I was not “fit to fight.” I beg your pardon?

Learning, in my own way

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I just came up from the basement and feel a little unclean. We
recently hired Ross Cota from Dorothy, Minnesota to cut open the basement floor and lay down
drain tile under the concrete floor. As a result of all that
construction, there is a fine layer of dust that will now forever
exist in that space, minus the load I just brought up on my clothes,
in my nose and nestled in my lungs. The basement looked so nice after
Ross finished that I decided it no longer need to be cloaked in the
eternal darkness of one tiny light bulb. I spent the morning
installing new lights and it’s actually a pleasure to view our
basement. Ross found a little butter knife underneath the concrete
when he cut open the floor. I don’t know how long ago the concrete
was poured but our house was built in 1921 so that might be some
indication. Anyway, it has no markings but I would venture a guess
that it was left there by the fellow who laid the concrete. I would
guess it had little expectation of ever seeing daylight again however
it is sitting in our dish drainer today.

When I was young, I always saw a tradesman (carpenter, electrician,
blacksmith) as a sort of shaman. They came to our farm, performed
mysterious tasks of their chosen art, then left. I remember Art
Thompson from Viking, Minnesota  putting in shelves, Ralph Rundell from Grygla on electrical tasks and Erling Hegg back in Viking doing repair and welding. Dad always told me to stay out of their way (with good reason) but I usually was
able to watch some of the fantastic feats they performed. I remember
being underfoot when Davidson’s drilled a well at our farm in the mid
seventies. Jeff Davidson drilled a well at our place a few years ago
and I joked with him that I would make sure I stayed out of the way
but that I would like to watch. Jeff said he remembered drilling the
well at my folks place and that I could watch as much as I wanted. Watching
another person drill a well isn’t as interesting when you are in your
mid forties as when you are a child. I lost interest fairly soon but
it was nice to talk to Jeff. He explained the process to me and even
showed me the drill bit, used worldwide, that was patented by Howard
Hughes Sr, father to his famous son.

I got to help Ross in our basement with the drainage and it was kind
of fun. Ross had a lot of good stories and although I stayed out of his
way, I learned quite a bit by helping him do it right. I will never
drill a well but Jeff Davidson from Newolfen helped me understand the process which
gaves me more a feeling of ownership. I dabble in the black arts of
electrical, and welding and truly enjoy building with wood. All of
these activities began with watching someone else. All have enriched
my life and kept my mind lively.

I’ve always heard that by spreading yourself too thin, you may become
a jack of all trades and a master of none. I will accept that risk.
The challenge of learning a new task, performing it poorly, then
taking it apart and doing it correctly makes me feel accomplished and
happy. I would rather feel challenged as a jack than bored as a master.
Life should be filled with challenge, not apathy. Thanks to all of those tradesmen, past
and future, who’ve helped me with their effort and educated me by
example.I will try to stay out of your way.