Monday, June 13, 2005, 19:50
A Trip Up the River
My husband has always wanted an electric trolling motor for our canoe. So, when a co-worker had one that he was planning to sell at his wife's garage sale, Randy jumped at the chance. He bought the trolling motor -- which had never been used! -- for the unbelievable price of $10. That was two months ago. On Sunday, we finally took the opportunity to try out the trolling motor on an excursion around the upper end of Tainter Lake and up the Hay River.
The trolling motor works great. When the water is too shallow to use the motor, we put our paddles to good use. When the water is deep enough for the trolling motor, we can use that time to rest up for the next stretch when the water is too shallow for the trolling motor.
One thing about going up the Hay River is that we rarely see other boats. The river is too shallow in some places for anything but a canoe or a John boat, and the folks who live around the lake tend to have much bigger boats.
Another reason we rarely see other boats is that the Hay River is narrow in spots, and if a tree falls across the river, it makes an effective barricade for boat traffic. A couple of times in years past, we have made the trip down the river from Wheeler to the lake, but it's not an easy trip, requiring at least several portages where we have had to get out, drag the canoe up on shore and carry it along until we are past the tree that has fallen into the water or a tree that has floated downstream in the spring when the water was high until it got stuck in a narrow spot.
Sunday was a gorgeous day for a canoe ride -- deep blue sky, puffy white clouds and a breeze out of the south. We spent a couple of hours paddling and "motoring" up the river and around the upper end of the lake. We saw clumps of wild iris and big wild rose bushes covered with blooms on the water's edge. We saw ferns growing in a wooded hollow that would be the envy of any professional gardener. We also saw a bald eagle perched in the top of a dead tree. The eagle apparently was watching us, too, because as we came closer, he spread his wings and flew off.
When I was growing up on our dairy farm only a little more than a mile away from the Hay River, there was no such thing as bald eagles in this area. Now we have many bald eagles, and on past trips down the Hay River, we have seen males and females and juveniles. Sometimes we see bald eagles soaring high in the sky above our house, too. And once, when I was on my way to town and used a short-cut road through a marshy area, another motorist and I were forced to stop as we waited for a bald eagle to decide he ought not to be standing in the middle of the road. It was a juvenile eagle. And if you've never seen an eagle up close -- they are huge.
My husband and I bought the canoe shortly after we were married, so it has been with us for many years. I like going out in the canoe. A canoe gives you the opportunity to experience life at a slower pace. A chance to view wildlife. A chance to see wildflowers. A chance to watch the clouds. A chance to bask in the sun and to enjoy a cool breeze blowing across the water. In this day and age, when people have become so impatient and tend to crave the "instant" -- high-speed Internet access -- cellular phones that allow you to talk to anyone anywhere (except for me because I refuse to own one) -- fast food -- convenience food -- an excursion in the canoe is much-appreciated gift.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, June 11, 2005, 20:27
Out With the Old. . .In With the New
It all started Wednesday night when I turned on the dryer to finish drying some pillow cases. After 20 minutes, Randy stopped the dryer and opened the door.
"Hey!" he said. "These are cold. And still wet."
Sure enough, the pillow cases were cold and still wet.
"That's odd," I said.
I fiddled with the dial and turned it so that the timer clicked off. Then I turned it to another setting.
After 20 minutes, the pillow cases were still cold and still wet.
We tried a couple more settings on the dryer, but all with the same result.
"Well, that's it," I said. "I think our dryer has given up the ghost."
I wasn't surprised. My mom and dad had bought the dryer when they retired from farming -- 30 years ago this fall.
"The dryer is 30 years old," I said. "We can't fault it for wearing out."
"No, I suppose not," Randy agreed.
As luck would have it, on Thursday, my husband was looking at a newspaper flyer while taking a break at work and found a dryer on sale. He picked up the clothes dryer on his way home from work, and just like that, we went into "major appliance moving and installing" mode.
With the help of a hand cart borrowed from my brother, we moved the old dryer out of the house, unloaded the new dryer from the back of the pickup truck, and hauled the new dryer into the house. That's when the "real" work began.
While Randy went about hooking up the wires to the back of the dryer, I puttered around, sweeping the grass clippings off the porch (I had just finished mowing and trimming), feeding my horse and watering some of my plants.
An hour later, Randy still did not have the wires hooked up.
"See now, here's the problem with a global economy," my husband said. "They make these things in some Asian country where people have tiny hands and they think *everybody* should be able to get their hands in here."
The back part of the dryer where the wires hooked up was so small, I couldn't get my hands in there, either.
"Just an eighth of an inch would have helped -- an eighth of an inch on the screws and an eighth of an inch more in between," my husband muttered.
By this time, since Randy didn't arrive home with the dryer until 7 p.m., it was starting to get dark in the house. He had turned the electricity off before unhooking the old dryer, and so of course, we didn't have any lights.
"I'll hold the flashlight," I said.
"I have to get a bandage first," my husband said. He held up his hand. Blood was running down the back of his hand and dripping on the floor.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I cut my knuckle trying to get into that small hole," my husband in a disgusted tone of voice.
A while later, with two bandages on his hand -- that were soaked with blood within 30 seconds of putting them on -- my husband was once again at the laborious task of trying to get those wires hooked up.
"If I only had some longer screws," Randy said.
He went downstairs and returned with a jar of odds and ends. He dumped the jar out onto the floor, and we started searching for longer screws that would fit the holes.
Some were too short.
Some were too long.
Some had threads that were too narrow.
Some had threads that were too wide.
Finally we found the screws Randy needed to finish the job.
Then came the nearly-impossible task of trying to bend the wires to fit into that teeny-tiny space.
"Oh, look," I said, "you're dripping blood on the floor and all over the dryer."
"Yes," my husband said, "I noticed."
In the meantime, it was growing darker and darker in the house. I had to keep shifting my position so I wouldn't get a cramp in my arm while at the same time trying to keep the flashlight trained on the terminals in that teeny-tiny space at the back of the dryer.
Finally, by 9 p.m., Randy had hooked up the wires, although we still had to screw the leveler-legs in the bottom corners and we still had to hook up the dryer vent.
"I wish they would have put the part about those levelers in the directions *before* they gave instructions for how to hook up the wires," Randy muttered.
By 9:30, everything was finished.
"Well," Randy said, "I'll go turn on the electricity and we'll see if it works."
A few minutes later, I pushed the "start" button and the dryer started up.
"It's so quiet!" I said.
"Much quieter than the old dryer," Randy said.
In fact, the new dryer was so quiet that our Shetland Sheepdog, Pixie, didn't quite realize it was a dryer. One of Pixie's favorite "games" is to bark at the clothes dryer when we turn it on.
By 10 p.m. we were sitting down to eat supper.
At 10:30 p.m., I fluffed my first load of clothes in the dryer. During the summer, I dry clothes outside, and then I fluff them in the dryer, mostly to remove any pollen that might have accumulated throughout the day, but also to make sure there are no bees or wasps lurking in a pantleg or a sleeve. That's all I would need is to put on a pair of jeans and get stung by a bee.
"This sure does have a tiny door," I said.
The door on our old dryer extended across the entire front of the machine. I could easily stuff a big armload of clothes in the old dryer without giving it a second thought. I'm going to have to put in only a few pieces at a time with such a small door.
"And it's low, too," Randy said.
My husband wasn't kidding when he said it was low. In order to get out a shirt so he could hang it up in his closet, my six-foot two-inch husband had to bend so that his head was below his knees. As for me, I felt like I ought to be sitting on the floor in order to comfortably remove the clothes.
Oh, well. It's a clothes dryer. And it works.
I am under no illusion, however, that the new dryer will last for 30 years. They just don't make appliances as well as they used to.
It's probably a good thing that Randy and I have become experts at moving new appliances into the house and moving old appliances out of the house. So far, we have replaced the freezer, the stove, the clothes washer and the dryer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't have to deal with the refrigerator yet for a few more years.
LeAnn R. Ralph