Preventative Medicine

I may be retired but I’m not dead. After working yesterday out in the orchard, first turning soil with a pitchfork, and then weed-eating, I can assure you I feel very much alive. All this discomfort can’t be coming from a corpse. 

Despite some minor technical difficulties, however, today I am ready to take hammer in fist, and embark on what can only be described as a truly enjoyable bit of frippery. I have a brand new box of Tinkertoys and together with SmallBoy, am building an eight-by-ten pump house/laundry room over at his spot. 

We did the pier foundation two days ago, allowing 48 hours before we start pounding on the undercarriage. All materials and tools are on-site, which is why I liken it to two kids with a brand new box of Tinkertoys. The fir is green, unlike what I have been working with all winter in remodeling my own bath/laundry rooms, so the entire process becomes much more straightforward.

Building is diabolically straightforward, with the most delicious sense of balance and precision imaginable. We strive for perfection and settle for what we get. I remember working on a job up at Island Mountain, when our crew of four showed up to build a 20-by-24-foot structure, on a foundation already in place, and we found after some perfunctory measurements, that the whole shebang was out-of-square by nine inches.

No plywood-stretcher to be found in the tool box...

Putting this in perspective, the normal range of acceptability (settling for what we get) might be an eighth to one/quarter-inch, not nine inches. It’s hard enough to get the old board stretcher to do its thing, let alone the plywood stretcher. If the floor joists are not perfectly in line, then you end up customizing every single sheet of plywood. 

Oh, by the way, that customizing must extend through every phase of the construction, because if the floor is out of square, so are the walls and the roof. Without question it is a builder’s worst nightmare, right in broad daylight.

Up on the Island, our crew faced an enormous challenge in rectifying the problem, without simply starting over from scratch, something that would have been a logistical impossibility. Getting materials to such a remote spot, over a road more closely resembling those down in Baja, California, back in the sixties, is not something accomplished while a crew sits around waiting.

Baptism by fire notwithstanding, the four of us checked our egos at the door, and worked together to make it happen. Cantilevering floor joists out over nothing on the two sides necessary by four-and-a-half inches at the outside, we made the whole thing come together with a minimum of customizing cuts needed.

I have done two more rows since I took this pic.

I anticipate no such challenges this morning.

I did give SmallBoy a heads-ups last evening when he popped by to pick up the miter-saw. “I’m not sure how much gas I have in the tank. I work until I can’t, and then I go home.” I made it clear years ago that I can no longer work on a crew; I’m not thirty anymore.

That being said, I’m not seventy yet, either, so I figure I’m good for five or six hours. After I leave, there will be ample pick-up work for SmallBoy to keep him occupied until we resume action on Saturday morning.

I am usually OK while on the job; it’s recovering from my exertions that poses the challenge. Luckily for me I have the key, in the form of some AC/DC. Speaking of that, I better roll up a phattie or two before I venture over there this morning. 

I like to think of it as preventative medicine. 

Speedy Erection Construction

The concept is literally as old as the hills: You scratch my itch and I’ll scratch yours. Or as it applies on The Bell: You help me finish the interior of my upstairs bedroom, I’ll come help you remodel your bath/laundry room. There is no statute of limitations, so there is no reason to rush into anything.

Original cabin: doors and windows not included...

As old as the hills? In June of 1984, I added on to my original 16 by 20 foot cabin, a two-story rectangle, 20 by 28 feet. Two of my brothers and a neighbor from across the road, worked on the construction of the “addition.” 

With the perimeter foundation already in place, the crew assembled on the designated Monday morning to begin the project, and by Friday the structure was built, sheathed and roofed, weather-tight and ready for the following winter. 

I lacked the pecuniary measures to defray the cost of a construction crew, so I did the next best thing: I logged in my time prior to the week of the project, so that in essence, I prepaid to have my home built. Despite my lack of experience, my time was traded equally for that of my two brothers and my neighbor, Rex, whose specialty was quick-construction.

We called ourselves “Speedy Erection Construction” and despite the moniker, we left our customers satisfied.

Rex had added on to his own home the previous summer and coincidentally, I had labored on the project without being paid. The understanding was that when I was ready to begin my addition, I would let Rex know.

Tom, circa 1972

I worked with my brother Tom on a week-long endeavor to improve his road, including the installation of a culvert at one particularly treacherous juncture, where the road crossed over a seasonal creek bed. This took place earlier that spring, with my own project just starting to take form. 

How much experience does a person need to shovel dirt, sand and gravel?

My brother Matt was adding on a little covered deck to the front of his home, so ours was a natural trade. Once again I managed to have already performed my part of the bargain, so that when I launched my own project, I had my crew all lined up.

A year ago Christmastime, while BossLady was visiting back East in Ohio, I cruised up to HeadSodBuster’s spot, to help him finish the interior of his upstairs bedroom. The architecture is unconventional, in that the roof peaks in the center, and there are a multitude of angles. 

Having served during my declining [construction] years as the sawyer, angles are my specialty. I have always felt that looking at life from as many different angles as possible, is the best way to go. I enjoyed the finish work immensely, which always surprises me. After much contemplation, I have decided that the reason I did not like finish work back in the day, is because in order to do it properly, it takes time.

As we all know, time is money. Now that my time is my own, it is my own to do with as I please. Having completed the framing and sheet-rocking in the bath/laundry room, I anticipate with a great deal of relish, the tackling of the mudding and painting of the rock.

As noted in an earlier piece, I will do a textured surface to the sheet rock, not because it looks so gosh-darned professional, but because I am unable to do smooth-wall to my own satisfaction. I find this entire job to be a pleasing combination of the left and right brains, the two working together for me, for once.

I say right-brained because from the minute I conceived of the project, I have had to expand my paradigms, refusing to kowtow to the reality of physics. I wanted to fit a 36” by 36” shower unit, a 32” door, and a 27” washer into a space a foot shy of the necessary dimensions.

The back of the shower extends 12 inches
into the kitchen.

Rather than compress either the washer or the shower unit into a smaller version of itself, or cut a third of the door away, I decide to expand the bath into the kitchen. With the original 16’ by 20’ cabin serving as the kitchen/pantry now, I could afford to sacrifice a three-foot by twelve-inch encroachment, in order to achieve my three-pronged goal.

Also helping me to achieve my goals is SmallBoy, who has committed to the chore of relocating the detritus from the job to the recycling center. Chore? Its more like a Herculean task. At times such as these, I always like to reflect back on the wise words of me father, “’Tis better to give than to receive.”

As colorfully chronicled in this space last August, ( http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/search?q=board+stretcher ) I built a power shed for SmallBoy, a project that included my nephew Jay, a dude whose enthusiasm for the farm in general, spilled over into construction. 

Over the course of a couple of weeks, never working more than four hours a day, we hammered out that shed, thus ensuring that when I needed his help, SmallBoy would reciprocate in a big way. That’s what I’m sayin’/talkin’ ‘bout.

HeadSodBuster and the author of Mark's Work,
February, 1984, literally in the trench of the addition...

With Gluten-Free Mama house-sitting down in Willits these past six days, I hunkered down in the trenches and confronted the enemy face-to-face. Let me tell you, it’s hard to get anything done in a trench, let alone when you are hunkered down, so I abandoned that approach and went for the jugular.

[Editor’s note: Never metaphor you didn’t like, huh?]

Slaving away, as many as sixteen hours a day, I refused to get bogged down: bonged down-possibly-but not bogged down. The job has been a joy, and try selling that line to my lower back and reconstructed right shoulder. 

Somehow I did, and all I really would like to get done today is to install the just-belt-sanded, tongue-n-groove, one-by pine on the laundry room ceiling, insulating as we go. At most it is a two-hour job and one that will transform the appearance of the laundry room into a facility that will make you forget that you are there to wash dirty clothes.

In times of dirty clothes, I like to remember that the laundry room also serves as the smoking room.

The Board Stretcher

I can smell smoke this morning, a clear indication that it is likely to be August. The fire need not be anywhere in the vicinity, because it can travel down from Oregon, or up from Lake County, at the drop of one of my many hats, depending on the mood of the winds.

Tomato sauce on a cherry tablecloth? Zounds!

Ignoring the smoke, I worked from one o’clock in the morning until noon, yesterday, mute testimony that retirement is more a state of mind than a physical reality. The first four hours of my day involved washing and sterilizing jars, filling them up with thick tomato sauce, and then processing them for eventual storage in our most efficient root cellar.

I then donned my farmer hat for three hours, while I cleaned water filters, fed and watered the chickens, and made my rounds of HappyDay Farms, West Forty. I walked the terraces, making sure there were no water line issues; I hand-watered my problem children, both cannabis and tomatoes; I flipped the valves on and then off, on fourteen stations of ornamentals, giving them a few precious minutes of water each; and finally, I took a few minutes to refuel, potatoes and eggs being the general go-to these days.

On came the apron, as I spit-shined the kitchen, which I do religiously when Gluten-Free Mama is gone, she being in Ohio to attend the funeral of BossLady’s precious grandmother. I am more than just obsessive-compulsive about keeping the house clean while she is gone, having long since made the connection that it is far easier to maintain a clean abode, than it is the clean it up, once it has been destroyed.

We’re talking time here, pure and simple, because there is so much to do, and so little time in which to get it all done. That’s where the irony of retirement comes in: If I am retired, why am I working so hard? I am working hard because work is life, and we on farm are happy in our work.

Jay pounding on a different kind of drum...

At precisely 7:55 yesterday morning, I grabbed my hard-hat and headed over to SmallBoy’s spot, where Jay and I are building a generator house/tool shed. This is part of an ongoing effort to become 100% compliant with cannabis regulation. You can tell we are almost there, when the genny house hits the top of the priority list.

Jay is the son of GF Mama’s brother, Joey, and he contacted HappyDay Farms in the dead of last winter to discuss a career change in his life. He wanted to become more connected with the land and his roots. Those are my words-not his. He talked more about getting back to basics and acquiring some life skills that were simply unavailable in the public sector.

With that philosophy, building a power-shed seemed like the perfect project, and it has proved so. Whereas Jay is an apprentice with a hammer in his hand, he approaches the job with enthusiasm blended with realism. What the mind often wishes to accomplish, the arm refuses to obey.

Fir will insist on being hard to drive nails into, and the knots are always in the wrong places. Jay will battle until the law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head, and then he will ask for help. He admires the way I can manhandle a nail out of any predicament, employing my two best friends, Mr. Cat’s Paw, and Mr. Crowbar, both accomplished jail breakers, but I assure him it is only a matter of experience.

I too was once a novice, using my newly discovered Skil-Saw skills, to cut a four-by-twelve, twenty-foot-long, fir girder, to a length of 19ft, 10in. Unfortunately, that was one inch too short, and since Rex had left the board stretcher at home, I was dispatched from Brook Trails to Mendo Mill in Willits, to acquire another twenty-foot-long fir girder. 

Mind you, I was not in trouble because the length I had butchered, would still be 100% usable; I just had to be the one to go to town and get a replacement. 

What is fascinating to me in light of Jay’s apprenticeship, is that when it comes to the world of music, I am the apprentice, and Jay is the master/maestro. He has grown up enveloped in the world of music, and has done the concert circuit, performing among other genres of music, heavy metal.

You see, I just acquired a drum and except for the general concept of making a lot of noise with my hands, I am clueless. 

[Editor’s note: Well, never mind.] 

I mean, more clueless than usual. 

[Editor: That helps.]

So the other afternoon, when Jay was here having some lunch, and my drum was out on display, he asked if I minded if he indulged. Intrigued, I readily agreed, and he sat down and proceeded to give me a five-minute tutorial, that expanded my horizons as though a fresh north wind had just come up and cleared out the smoke from the neighborhood.

Again, the man is a master in the world of music. He treated the drum reverently, admiring the craftsmanship, before he ever tasted the fruit. And when he did, he made it clear that the fruit was available to all. Specifically, I watched/listened as he rhythmically created a wide range of different sounds, by moving his hands from the outer rim to the center.

I also listened/watched while he maneuvered intensity from a soft pattering to a heavy thunder, as he hit the drum softly or hard. He gave me some elementary pointers in a non-intimidating way, inviting me to explore different approaches to my drum-play.

Two different worlds, two masters and two apprentices. It is a match made in Fantasyland, a clear case of labor exchange if ever there were. As I simultaneously give Jay instruction in the art of carpentry, he is giving me instruction in the world of music. 

There can be only one question: Are the tails in line?

Should my head swell beneath my ice-filled hat, while on the construction site, it is just as likely to shrink, while trying to figure out why my hands won’t do what my brain wants them to do, when sitting in front of the drum. Kind of like that hammer in Jay’s hand.

The master shall learn and the pupil shall teach, regardless of which is which. When I get too complacent to learn anything more, put me out of my misery and scatter my ashes on the playground of the nearest kindergarten.