Thursday, June 12, 2008, 13:31
Too Good to Miss
There I was, behind the barn Monday afternoon with the push mower, trying to mow what had turned from a lawn into a hay field in just a few days. When I turned to reposition the mower, there was the town patrolman standing there. I knew he had been out working on the road all afternoon because I had been hearing the bobcat, backhoe and grader.
"What's up?" I said.
"The town truck went over the bank," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"The town truck went over the bank. With a load on it," he said.
The patrolman has been working on putting in a storm drain on the hill around the corner from our house. When it rains heavily, the water drains down the hill from two different directions where it meets at the "Y" and then washes out the middle of the dirt road running north of our house. He has been hauling dirt out of that area and taking it down the road to fill in the bank on the road west of our house and then replacing it with crushed rock.
Since the man was standing right in front of me, I figured it was safe to assume that he was all right. A dump truck going over a steep bank doesn't sound like the safest thing in the world.
"When I put the truck in first gear, it went into reverse. It's not the first time I've had trouble with the transmission, either. That's how it ended up over the bank," he said.
An Odd Bunch
Our township doesn't have as much money as some of the other surrounding townships. We don't have as many big, expensive houses, so we don't have as big a tax base. And that's the way we like it. We're kind of an odd bunch here in Otter Creek.
I've had other people say to me, "I don't know how you can stand to live there. The roads are in such rough shape." I look at them and I say, "We like our roads. They keep the tourists from driving through." Then I get a really strange look, and the person hurries away from me, as if I am contagious. Most of them figure out, I think, that they are "tourists" to whom I am referring.
The township is remote and wild with lots of woods and old fields and marshy areas, and if the roads were all in good shape, we'd have nonstop traffic driving through -- although maybe not so much now with $4 a gallon gas.
In the history of the township, we probably have not ever bought a new town truck. With the all the bells and whistles on them (snow plow blade, sander, and so forth, town trucks can end up costing close to $100,000. The current truck doesn't look like it's in too bad a shape, but it's a used truck, and when you buy used, you take the chance of buying someone else's problems. Apparently this one has a problem with the transmission.
Worst Trouble
"This is the worst trouble I've ever gotten into with the truck. Can I use your phone?" the patrolman asked.
"Sure," I said.
To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised that the township has not provided a cell phone for the patrolman.
We walked up toward the house.
"I don't know if Mark [the town chair] will be home," he said.
"If he's not, and you need to go somewhere, I can take you," I said.
"I'd have to get to the town shop," he said.
The town shop is some miles to the north, although not really all that far. It's next to the town hall -- a marvelous, old building that was at one time a one-room school. A number of old one-room schools in this part of the state have gained new purpose by becoming town halls.
As it turned out, the town chair was not available, but it just so happened that the town clerk was at his house on township business. She was able to come and get the patrolman, and I went back to work mowing the tall grass in back of the barn. I had to mow it, rake it, and then mow it again to get it evened out. When the patrolman was talking to the clerk, I overheard him say he would need to call a tow truck.
Big Rig
A while later, when I had shut off the mower, I heard the sound of a big rig idling and people talking. The town truck was over the bank below the hill from our house west of here. Because of the way the hill is situated, I couldn't see it from here.
So, I did what any self-respecting nosy person would do.
I got into my little truck and drove down there.
Sure enough, when I came around the corner, I could see the town truck with its wheels over the bank and the belly of the truck resting on the road. It was at a point where the bank is particularly steep, and it's a thousand wonders it didn't go all the way over.
The tow truck driver was standing there watching the patrolman use the backhoe to scrape the load off the back of the truck.
There was only a few feet of road open in front of the town truck. The tow truck was the kind used to tow semi-trucks.
"How are you going to get it out of there? You can't pull it straight out. There's not enough room," I said to the the tow truck driver after I explained that I was a nosy neighbor and that patrolman had come to my house to use the telephone.
"I'll have to pull it sideways," the driver replied. He was just a young guy. Maybe in his mid to late 20s.
Pull it sideways. To me, that didn't sound like an especially good idea. I had visions of the truck slipping down the bank and going over completely.
"He's lucky it wasn't worse than this," the driver said to me.
"I know. I was glad, when I heard what had happened, to see that he had walked away from it," I said.
When the patrolman was finished scraping off the load, he pulled forward with the backhoe and wedged the bucket under the back of the town truck.
In the meantime, the town chair had arrived.
"I'm nosy. I had to come and see what was going on," I said.
He smiled. "This is much too good a show to miss!"
"I thought so, too."
"I can't believe we've been having this much trouble with the transmission. This is the third time we've had it fixed," the town chair said.
Push Power
As we stood there watching, the patrolman pulled forward with the backhoe, and then, bit by bit, was actually able to push the truck back up onto the road. When the tires were four inches beyond the soft shoulder, he stopped.
Now, the tow truck driver must have been an incredibly brave young because he got into the town truck -- with the wheels only four inches from the edge of the soft bank -- and started it. Although, I guess the truth of the matter is, if it went backwards again, it would only go as far as the backhoe.
The tow truck driver was able to pull it forward onto the road and straighten it out. At this point, I surmised my little truck would be in the way when he pulled the big rig forward to hook onto the town truck, so I went back home.
In Tow
About 15 minutes later, the tow truck went past our place with the town truck in tow.
Five minutes later, Randy came home.
"What happened to the town truck?" he said. "I went past the tow truck over by Ingman's. He had to pull over so I could get through."
I explained about the transmission and how the truck had gone into reverse when it was put into first and had ended up over the bank.
All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.
The activity on our road is in preparation for blacktopping it later this summer. The last time it was blacktopped was 32 years ago. At that time, instead of hauling in much base, it was pretty much blacktopped right over the sand that was there.
The road has got base now. The township has been hauling in base, but the much of it came from Xcel Energy's little debacle last year when they drove on it when the frost was going out and tore it up, leaving two and three-foot deep ruts.
With any luck at all, once they get done blacktopping, they will leave the road alone for the next 40 years. It's been kind of noisy around here -- back-up beepers echoing off the hills, chain saws, bobcat and backhoe running, huge dump trucks bringing in more crushed rock . . .
Rain Update
It rained Tuesday night, and we got about 4/10 of an inch. It rained during the day Wednesday and we got 3/10 of an inch. Then it rained Wednesday night for quite a while, and it rained 1 3/4 inches. In the last two days, we've gotten about 2.5 inches of rain. We're not at flood stage here, by any means, but if it rained quite a bit up north, the rivers will be coming up in the next couple of days. You can always tell when it has rained hard up north because the water in the Hay River and the Red Cedar River turns muddy.
Charlie
Charlie is doing very well on the prednisone. It has been a week since we gave him any of the pain medication, and he is trotting around like not much is bothering him. And this from a dog we thought might not ever be able to walk again.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, June 09, 2008, 18:45
Burning Down the House (Almost)
Randy and I had gone outside Sunday afternoon for a while. It was cloudy and damp and threatening rain all Sunday afternoon. When we came back inside, the house was filled with smoke. Something clearly was burning.
"What's burning?" Randy asked.
I didn't reply but headed for the kitchen.
There, beneath the window where the hummingbird feeder is hanging outside, was the source of the smoke.
The towel covering the toaster was on fire.
Actually, so was the toaster.
"Here," I said, grabbing the towel. "Take this outside."
Randy rushed to the door and threw the towel outside. While he was doing that, I hastily unplugged the toaster.
"Throw this outside, too," I said.
"How did that happen?" Randy asked when he came back from tossing the toaster.
"One of the kittens got up on the toaster to watch the hummingbirds," I said.
"Oh," Randy said. "And when they did, they pushed down the handle."
"And stepped on the towel and pushed it down into the toaster."
As Randy and I stood there looking at each other, I felt my stomach give a small lurch. This should have been one of those times that the smoke alarm was shrieking, but of course, it wasn't because Randy has taken the battery out of it. We have tried putting the smoke alarm in several places in a central location in the house, but no matter where we put it, it seems that the steam from the bathroom when one of us is taking a shower sets it off. As soon as the door is opened to clear out the steam, there goes the smoke alarm. It must be sensitive to the small rise in temperature from a cloud of steam.
"If that had happened when we were at church this morning," I said, "the house would be gone. Or if it had happened when neither of us was home."
"Or if we had started up the lawn mowers instead of coming back inside when we did," Randy said.
The air was filled with thick, blue smoke. While I went around opening windows, Randy retrieved several fans from the basement to put in the windows to clear out the smoke.
To tell you the truth, the thought had crossed my mind once or twice that maybe we should move the toaster. Henry, Katerina and Dora are always climbing around by the sink to watch the hummingbirds at the feeder.
After a half an hour of fans running and me walking around waving a bath towel up and down, the smoke was cleared out of the house.
All I can say is, our guardian angels surely must have been watching out for us. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph