It Worked!

About 20 years ago, my extended family gathered at my parents' home, or maybe it was in Santa Fe, and one of my older brothers asked me, "Did you ever notice how much work Mother and Dad do around their place? Dad's list is several pages long." For the first time, I became aware that as I age I may want, or need, to pare down the things we take for granted, especially tasks that require much physical effort.

We're in the middle of our 4th snow storm of the season. One of them only laid down 2-3 inches, so it was nothing, but the other two were monsters and the same is being said of today's delight. Both times we began to shovel our driveway when the ruler said 4 inches. That's a good height because we can push the snow across the asphalt with very little lifting. By the time we finished the first pass, we had 4-5 more inches and started over again. We then made the mistake of going to sleep for our usual 8 hours, which made for some heavy lifting after we woke up.

Epiphany! Two days ago, on our fairly regular 4-mile walk together, Karen and I noticed Jay, a neighbor down the road a couple miles, pulling something behind his pickup. He explained while we admired. Jay is one of those guys who can do anything mechanical. I am not; Karen is better. As we headed homeward, Jay suggested, "They used to make these out of wood." He had welded his from metal.

You might be able to guess what the rest of our walk involved -- plus a few moments in between then and yesterday afternoon. They say pictures are worth a thousand descriptive mistakes, so I'll post a few below. All you need is a pallet, a hammer, a drill and 5/8" bit, some nails or screws, five 80-inch oak boards, a couple ropes, a tombstone (that's the weight you see on top), and, of course, snow.

It works!

"But where are you going to store that thing?" says Virginia.

"I think I'll plant it in the field next to the manure pile," I say.

"Let's hope it doesn't grow any bigger,": she says.