How did I not see that coming?

Tags

Accident, Embarrassment, Humour, Tree Change

I think we all have those moments when we feel like we are too damned stupid to be left unsupervised. My moments always seem to include a sense of ‘how did I not see that coming?’ oh, and they’re usually expensive, embarrassing, or painful. Once in a while, I manage a trifecta and get all three. Woohoo.

The earliest such event that I can recall involved me wanting to see how fast I could take ‘Dead Man’s Elbow’ on my bicycle. I was about 13. ‘Dead Man’s Elbow’ was a downhill curve with a bunch of houses on one side and a deep gorge on the other. Of course, the curve bent away from the gorge just at the steepest bit. I think I got up to 60 or 70kph. I can’t really be sure. What I can be certain of, though, is that I felt decidedly stupid climbing a tree at the bottom of the gorge and wrestling to untangle my bike.

You see, if you go really fast down a steep hill with a curve at the end, you won’t actually be able to turn along the curve. No. You will beautifully illustrate Newton’s first law which goes: “Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, so you will plunge headlong into that deep gorge and wreck your bike, you pillock.” or something like that.

Another moment of incredible stupidity involved a romantic evening between consenting adults… Or should have. Let me explain. A very nice lady and myself were enjoying ourselves and the freedom of being in our early twenties. On this particular evening, a movie marathon of ‘B’ grade horror movies was on the idiot box. We were watching the movies. Clothes were not in evidence. The very nice lady informs me that she’d quite like a toasted cheese. Basically, a piece of bread, something savoury, some cheese on top, whacked under the grill. Right? Problem. New to the flat. New to the GAS oven. Might have taken a bit long getting the pilot light… Um… Lit. Whooosh!

Grillers on gas ovens are – for a fellow of my height – just a bit lower than where we wear our belt buckles. Needless to say, I had not planned an evening of ointments and ice, but that’s what I got. But here’s the thing. That isn’t the bit that made me feel unbelievably stupid. Okay, daft yes. Embarrassed and injured, yep. But I give myself a pass due to my unfamiliarity with the oven. No, the stupid bit comes next. My mother (the Meandering Matriarch) is… comfortable in herself. She doesn’t have a lot of hang ups. She’s the kind of woman who decides to get a Brazilian and then blogs about it. She’s not a terribly subtle soul… or reserved.

My ‘how did I not see that coming?’ bit was telling her about my slight conflagration and then having to endure the inevitable ‘pleasure’ of my mother singing the Jerry Lee Lewis song ‘Great Balls of Fire’ at me frequently thereafter.

So. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I have another one. Sort of. It doesn’t really compare with the previous ones mentioned, but it is important for the context of what comes next.

A friend of mine has an inadequate chicken coop. I helpfully suggested that we build a new one. While doing so, I could teach him a bit about woodwork (okay, not a lot, but a bit). To do this, I set up my table saw. Unfortunately, I put the saw in backwards. Such saws have a forward and a backwards for a reason. Basically it all has to do with which direction the saw blade is spinning. So when I go to fire it up and test it… well… It’s really amazing how quickly a piece of wood can achieve NASA-esque velocities. Sadly, it’s trajectory was out through the window. Unfortunately, the window was closed at the time. Sigh.

Being me, I admit it to my silver haired mum, because I know she enjoys a good laugh. Imagine my delight, then, to have her admit shortly thereafter that she, too, has an admission. Just the other day, while getting her guest room ready for a visitor, she spied a scorpion on the floor. Yes, a scorpion. The evil nasty lethal arthropod things that normally infest egyptian mummies tombs and scorpion pits. Famed throughout legend and history for being venomous.

It wasn’t moving. She wanted to check if it was dead. Now… How would a sensible person check to see whether a dangerous critter is still alive and stroppy? Well, whatever that method is, it isn’t what my mum did. No, she nudged it with her toe.

So. Picture a woman of a certain age with a now irate scorpion CLINGING to her sock. I think we can all agree; ‘how did she not see that coming?’

The happy ending of the story is that nobody was hurt by my ballistic bit of wood (except the window) and my mother was not savagely stung. We all get to live happily ever after (except for the scorpion, who got bludgeoned to death with a cowboy boot). We all get to keep having our moments, and we all get to tell our loved ones just how mind numbingly, incomparably stupid we really are. My guess is, they already know.

Be well,

Badger

Five steps forward…

Tags

chainsaw, Humor, plumbing, rural, Tree Change

G’day,

Grab a cuppa or a tinnie – whatever floats your boat – and settle back, this is gunna be a long one.

I’ve mentioned, from time to time, that doing a tree change and renovating a crumbling cottage is a bit of a five steps forward and four steps back affair. Nothing is ever quite straightforward. Nothing ever goes quite as you planned.

The first thing about doing a tree change is that you deliberately go and live near trees. As trees are a real estate developers natural enemy, you have to leave urban areas. Cities have lots and lots of real estate developers. Living far away from everything complicates pretty much everything. Those of you who live rurally may be thinking; “Aw diddums. Toughen up princess.” But you see, people who have been living rurally for a couple of years have everything sorted out. They have their routines. They know how to manage everything and have their contingency plans already tried and tested.

Let me give you an example; when the power goes out around here, dozens of homes and farm houses go dark – briefly. Then somebody wanders over to the shed with the generator and starts it up. Most will be muttering colorfully, I admit, but they will have power after a relatively small amount of hassle.

But. If you’re new to living in the bush, it’s just possible that you won’t know that you need a generator. As a newbie, you won’t realize that power companies don’t really ‘prioritize’ rural supply. We’re far away from the power company offices, there aren’t a lot of us living here, and the really big factor is that we’re spread out and our power lines are hundreds of kilometers long. Consequently, blackouts here can last a couple of weeks.

Tradesmen and government services are the same. When something goes ‘ppffffttt’, the rural resident generally has to find a temporary solution themselves. If you’re new to all of this, the solution will involve a trip to town. It will also involve spending money that you weren’t expecting to spend.

I started my renovation and tree change knowing that my property wasn’t connected to the power grid. So I had the generator from the get go. Shame I didn’t know how to service the blasted thing. There are four dead generators in one of my sheds. None of them work. Why? Because I didn’t know what I was doing. One of them accidentally got a teeny tiny amount of water in the fuel. One of them wasn’t serviced regularly enough or properly – it might be recoverable, but the jury is still out on that. One of them was simply misused. The fourth one? I still don’t know why it died. I might be able to fix it, don’t know yet. One day I will take them all apart and see what I can jury rig.

I am not an astoundingly stupid person. I have skills. I have abilities. If you need a 60,000 word thesis proof read, I’m your guy. If you need some powerpoint slides whipped up that are chocker block with snazzy maps and graphics; look no further. If you need an insanely complex spreadsheet thrown together for an analysis of whatever; I can have that for you in under a couple of hours. Unfortunately, no volume of powerpoint presentations festooned with pretty pictures will coax a water flooded generator to do anything other than rust. Which it was going to do anyway. Because it was flooded (Some people might observe that only an astoundingly stupid person would allow water to have gotten into a fuel can and then into a generator… well… once I come up with a snappy riposte, I will post it!).

Moving on from the generator, my chainsaw won’t work. There is a safety lock, a kind of reverse clutch on chainsaws that make them merely hellaciously dangerous. If the clutch safety lock thingy doesn’t engage, then as soon as you start it, it starts wanting to rip huge chunks out of things. I am fond of my spleen and my knees and my elbows. They do various wondrous and nifty things. I’d notice if I suddenly didn’t have them anymore. Being around a chainsaw that doesn’t have a safety lock clutch doodad is, I suspect, somewhat like lathering yourself up with barbecue sauce and then jumping in to swim with the sharks. After stenciling the word ‘CHUM’ on your forehead. With bacon.

I don’t know how to fix it. I want to cut up some old logs, but my chainsaw will try to kill me. I don’t know how to fix it. I could google it, but lately i have come to the conclusion that its just easier and faster and much more reliable to ask one of my neighbours. I am convinced that my neighbours know more than the internet. The world wide web has only been humming along since about 1980, my neighbours have been around way longer than that.

There is another frequent fly in the ointment. Another kind of calamity. Nothing is ever as easy as it looks. Running lots of pipe and hoses and whatnot from water tanks to faucets sounds fairly straightforward, but the blasted things leak. You don’t lay out the pipes and hoses, hook them up, put water through, identify the leaks, fix the leaks, move on to the next job.

No. You start to lay the pipes and hoses out, discover a couple of awkward obstacles that you have to either go around, under, over, or through, then (after much hacking and hewing with axe, spade, or dynamite – your choice), you lay out the hoses and pipes and start to hook them up.

That’s when you discover that you have the wrong gauge connector for at least one pipe to a hose or some such, so you spend ages sifting through what odds and ends you do have to see if there is any combination that can be daisy chained to solve the problem. Eventually you discover that there is not, so you drive to the nearest hardware store to get what’s missing (unfortunately, that takes almost three hours – what with the rather long bit of driving),

When you get back, you hook everything up and run water through the system. After you have frantically sprinted to the tank to shut the water off so that it will stop cascading forth from about 40% of the connectors, you wander around with some tools and little rolls of white plumbers tape and try and ‘fix those leaks’. Then you try the water again. Then you sprint again. Then you go back to the old leaks and tweak them some more and then you go to the new leaks and swear at them for not having leaked before. Once you have tightened and taped and tweaked everything (Including a cat who got too close while you were really focused), you try the water. Again.

Okay. This is when you decide to get serious. Every connection, and I mean every connection is taken apart, cleaned, beautifully taped, and then carefully (but firmly) tightened to within an inch of its life. Every hose and pipe is checked. Everything is thoroughly scrutinized and made as good as is theoretically possible. No step has been ignored. No sloppy bodge job tolerated. This is meticulous craftsmanship and care of the finest calibre. This time, it’s right. You put water through the system. Then you sprint to shut it off. You console yourself that as it’s winter, the weekly rains will probably refill the tank faster than the leaks can empty it. Probably.

Oh… how I wish that I was exaggerating.

But, here’s the thing. My neighbours don’t have any where near this kind of hassle. They are well equipped and provisioned for unpredictable eventualities. When something goes pear shaped, they have the tools, the plan, and the experience to resolve it – at least temporarily. They still have a long way to travel when they go to town, but they make a day of it. They sort out 12 – 15 issues with each trip. When I go to town, I sort out about 3.

That’s the trick. Learning. Getting a handle on how to deal with things when they go awry, building up the tool chest and spare materials to deal with come what may. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. But you’re only racing against yourself. No Olympic Medals are on offer. Just a lifestyle.

My neighbours are unfailingly friendly. Always helpful. I am sure that they are highly amused by my bumbling incompetence… but I think that they have noticed that I’m still here. I think that they’ve noticed that I’m still trudging along getting the crumbling cottage on the hill sorted out. Five steps forward, four steps back. You still get there in the end.

Badger