(20) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: They Call the Wind Annoying

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

They Call the Wind Annoying

The wind started blowing around a week or so ago.  Have you noticed?  Some of us notice more than others.  When it isn’t blowing, it’s howling.  I am in the most extended period of normalcy I have experienced since prior to last summer.  I am getting the good sleep each 24-hour period, and my legs are as strong as they have been in a year.  But it’s that doggoned wind that I want to talk about this morning.

There was a spate of fires yesterday, sending crews out in all directions, the same crews criss-crossing Mendo County, in order to cover them all.  It’s not surprising when you consider that the heat plus the wind, makes for a volatile combination.  As our favorite local radio weatherman likes to intone, “The low pressure will mix with high pressure, and kick up the pressure gradients, and that will bring about the wind.”  

Around here, we call the wind “annoying.”  It takes its toll on the garden; it creates havoc on the deck, knock pots and knick-knacks off the railing, and it knocks Mr. Crips’s dish under the steps, so I have to go a-hunting.  Lately, it has created havoc with my efforts to keep the lumber covered with a tarp, so that the wind and sun do not cause it to dry and warp, before we use it to build the addition to the workshop.

It goes without saying that I would take rudimentary precautions to protect the fir.  Unfortunately, rudimentary does not cut it in this wind.  The tarp with which I carefully covered the wood, including placing a chunk of four by four redwood on top of it, was meandering down the driveway, when I overtook it and returned it to its rightful spot, atop my pile of fir.  I added a ten-feet-long piece of corrugated metal, ready to get placed on the top of the chicken coop, to the pile, on top of the tarp, and then put the chunk of four-by-four on top of that.

The next morning I came out to find the tarp again traipsing down the avenue, the sheet of corrugated metal and the four by four redwood cast to one side, and I said, wtf, (Whoa, there friend).  I gathered up my scattered wits, and the tarp, and prepared to do it right.  Fighting the wind, every step of the way, I replaced the tarp, tucking the ends under the fir, as well as possible, and put the metal sheet back with the four by four redwood on top of it.  I walked over to my stack of scrap wood and added another redwood post, a chunk of two by six, and just for ood measure, my skill saw.  That ought to do it, I thought.

The next morning I came out to find the tarp again off the stack, and actually missing in action, later turning up in the creek bed. Now I was seeing all shades of red, as I scrambled down the bank of the creek bed, to retrieve the recalcitrant tarp.  I stormed back up the side of the bank, flailing wildly as I got tripped up by a wandering root, and ended up in a heap, carefully cushioned by the crumpled up tarp, i was clutching out in front of me.

I did not even slow down until tarp, redwood posts, various chunks of this and that and my skill saw, were all in place on top of the tarp.  With an air of finality, and more than a slice of bipolar pie, I stalked over to another pile of materials, and reached down and manhandled an unopened bag of Readi-Mix concrete, over to the pile, where I unceremoniously deposited it on top of all that was already there.  If that doesn’t do it, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

The next morning, when I strolled out to the site, the first thing I saw on the ground beside the stack, was that sack of concrete.  The tarp was nowhere to be seen.  We call the wind annoying, but it doesn’t seem to care.