Hardware

Back in the day...before Lowe’s or Home Depot or Costco or Overstock.com...or LampsPlus or FaucetsDirect...or a whole laundry list of online suppliers catered to the persnickety or bargain oriented home renovator….there was Vic’s...and Friendly Boys….and Curfman’s.   

Yes, back in the day, you couldn’t sit in line at the elevator, or watch the auger, pull up a website, and pick out a gift for your wife’s birthday…. which happened to fall smack dab in the middle of harvest.  No, the opportunities to shop ranged from null to void...unless something broke down and you had to run to John Deere for parts. And then, your options were….Vic’s…. or Friendly Boys….or Curfman’s.

Many a year I received something practical for my birthday from the hardware store.  Even more likely was a Christmas present from Curfman’s especially if their Daddy took the kids shopping a day or so before Christmas. Ann remembers being particularly partial to kitchen items. Nearly every Christmas there was a cheese slicer in my pile of gifts, the perfect item to replace the previous cheese slicer, which had met an untimely demise sometime earlier in the year.  I’ve often wondered if Cathy ever noticed all those cheese slicers, or perhaps, whether....with a sly smile... she was the one who suggested them year after year!

Curfman’s almost always had what we needed...if I plopped down a bolt or tap, they found it, slipped it into a brown paper sack, and you were on your way. Paint supplies, brooms, buckets, rope, chain, shovels, batteries, fuses, extension cords, various plumbing parts or electrical parts for whatever was ‘broke’ at that time.  Cathy or Ivan knew the place for everything, even the contents of the shelves that towered into the dim reaches near the tin ceiling. Lord only knew what amazements were hidden on the upper floors or in storage in the basement. After all, there was a Curfman Hardware before there was a town of Tarkio…

Alas, after some years, Cathy retired from small business and took her pleasant demeanor and even temperament to the halls of the Tarkio school system.  Sure enough, a century of rural history emerged from the bowels and storerooms of the old brick building, a time capsule, a snapshot of what a farming community used, broke, fixed, and finally, replaced decade by decade.  

The most amazing artifact was the brand new full sized windmill top complete with vanes. It was enormous.  I don’t remember the manufacturer..perhaps it was Aermotor, but it might well have been a Dempster, hometown Beatrice, Nebraska.  I pined for that windmill, every time I stopped by and still wonder what lucky soul got the opportunity to top their tower with a “never been out of the box” windmill.

After Curfman’s closed, we had to move down the street with our hardware needs.  We bought a dryer at Vic’s and lumber and nails for all kinds of repairs in the twilight zone that was Friendly Boys.  I’ve asked Blake how long the lumberyard had been “Friendly Boys”, recollecting the personality of its longtime proprietor, but the answer seems to be lost in the past.  Vic’s is a derelict building now but the former site of Friendly Boys is a bright and shiny new grain facility, built out of the reach of the occasional soaking by the Tarkio River that used to warp the bottom boards at Friendly Boys.  

And, never fear, we still get the wherewithal for our myriad repairs and quixotic projects large and small at a place with the same “yeah we have it here somewhere...let me look” attitude of the hometown hardware stores of yore….we just have to drive a little farther.  As a matter of fact, the phrase “going to Burke’s” has become something of a family catchphrase, and the result of any trip there is almost always “something we can make work” or at least a good story.

Wonder if they’ve got a windmill stashed away somewhere?

Frost Free

"They must hunger in frost who spring-time have lost."
German saying

 

Mostly Cloudy

Low: 36 °F

Thursday

Comes around every year….yes, yes, it’s mid October and several days beyond the average first frost for Tarkio, but don’t we all postpone the inevitable when it comes to cold weather?  Who turns on their furnace, or rolls up the garden hose, or winterizes the lawnmower...in September? At any rate, the night time temperatures this whole week will be settling into the mid-30s, dropping, dropping before making that final fatal plunge to 31 degrees on the 14th.

My birthday.  That comes around every year too.  

The proverbial “spring cleaning” is a no-go for folks in the flower business, leaving those long harvest evenings as the ideal opportunity for home improvement projects in this household. I’ve just wound up the living room painting project, covering coffee spills and assorted furniture divots.  I even had the pleasure of rearranging the furniture….as much as one can in a room with three doorways, a window, and a giant pocket door.

My folks clearly had different theories about birthday gifts.  Gifts my mother picked out: pretty sweaters, fuzzy jackets, dangly earrings, a whimsical watercolor print of geraniums and a baby robin that hangs in our kitchen.  

Gifts my father picked out: a step ladder, long handled pruners, waterproof shoes, a rain jacket.  My mother always told me, “Your father prefers useful gifts.” Sometimes there would be compromise, like the pair of blue lamps for our bedroom, but especially when I received pottery:  mixing bowls or serving bowls or platters that were not just serviceable but beautiful as well.

One year they broke with this pattern, unwrapping a beautifully finished 3 foot long slab of cherry with a single autumn hued handmade tile mounted on one end.  The tile they had purchased at a gallery on one of their local travels, but the slab of cherry was an heirloom of sorts, a piece of wood my father had inherited with my grandfather’s woodworking tools. My Grandpa Froerer had purchased the cherry somewhere in Illinois years and years ago.  The rest of the board was left open for me to decorate with tiles from future travels.

 This object is no lightweight.  As a matter of fact, it’s always made me a little nervous, hanging above the bathroom door as it does.  My father screwed two hooks into its back, very firmly, and, in typical frugal fashion, re-purposed what I’m certain is chain from the swing set he made for his grandchildren.  The board sits atop the crown molding on the door, so the plaster walls do not bear the full weight, but I’ve never felt the engineering was quite up to the standard of redundancy my father usually executed.

So, with all due respect and appreciation, I bought a picture hanging package designed for items weighing between 75 and 100 pounds(more weight than I could ever lift overhead!)

I unscrewed the twisted and bent hooks (yikes, they weren’t in danger of pulling out, but they weren’t straight anymore, either!) and drilled into the beautiful cherry with the proper hardware.

I replaced the swing set chain with picture hanging wire, doubled up and tightly wound.  It was a labor of love. I put my tools away after I finished.

Now, barring a direct lightning strike or a bigger earthquake than we’ve experienced thus far, the birthday gift from years ago is safe and secure...and the folks that pass through the bathroom door are too!

And what about that freeze on the 14th?  Well, the houseplants are happily situated in their winter quarters as well...all except for the big jade, a two person job.

 My mom’s house plants always summered in the screened comfort of their market barn and were moved back into the house and greenhouse well before the first freeze.

I’ve never been that organized and often have fallen upon the mercy of the weather gods in praying for a night that DOESN’T QUITE FREEZE while I promise to move the posies to safety TOMORROW.  Not this time. This year all the hand me down begonias, the antique hoyas, the hibiscus as tall as I am, and the succulents I can't quite part with will have been carried up the stairs two by two to their botanical equivalent of the ark.

Using the right tools for the job?  Moving the plants in before it freezes?  Is THIS the birthday I get not just older...but wiser?  

"IF....Roadtripping with Grandpa 2018 Version

“If...you give a moose a muffin…..”

“If...you give a mouse a cookie….”

“If ...you give a dog a donut…….”

“If...you give a cat a cupcake….”

To these popular and well loved titles by author Laura Numeroff, I would suggest an addendum, lacking perhaps in alliteration, but leading to an equally logical chain of incremental links:

“If ….you give a boy a Road Atlas…”  

Especially if that boy is Levi....

If you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will tell you the next exit.  And the exit after that. He will ask you if you’re in Kansas...and a little while later, he will ask you if you’re still in Kansas…

But...he’s just checking on YOUR navigation, because if you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will know how to read the map.  He will keep you on your toes, inventing new and intricate routes to your destination, particularly if these routes include cities or states he’d really like to drive through.  It can be difficult to stay excited about I -70 across Kansas to Denver….

“If...you give a boy a menu, he’ll order a cheeseburger..”

If you give a boy a cheeseburger, he’ll ask if there’s barbeque sauce.

Especially if that boy is Josh....

This makes meals with Josh both the easiest of times and the hardest of times.  Steak houses, burger joints, even Mexican places can be relied upon to have something satisfactory on the menu.  Given his preferences, credit Josh with a generosity of culinary adventurism the evening a sudden Vail thunderstorm drove us into the only place that would seat a grandpa, a grandma, and six kids….a German restaurant with an empty second floor.

“If...you add kids to water, pretty soon you have ….fun.”

Kids in ankle-high water moccasins wading through the busy brown water of the Colorado;

kids bumping over the waves in an inner tube.  

Kids tippy toeing over the rocks across a mountain stream;

kids skipping stones and heaving sticks;

kids building towers in the middle of the creek;

kids washing pebbles and putting the prettiest ones in their pockets to carry home….Kids, rub a dub dub, half a dozen of them,  escaping the mountain chill in the hot tub.

 “If…. someone asks what a belly flop looks like…..? ”

Trust me, Josh is your guy.  Not only that, but the ensuing splat will be a 10 point 0 on the Richter scale.  

“If you give a kid some money, he’ll need a souvenir….or a snack!”  Refrigerator magnets are a family tradition; Levi is captivated by Abbie’s Colorado Flag magnet so we make a trip to the gift car on the Leadville & Colorado Southern excursion train.

Because breakfast that morning was early, Gabe and Aaron need a root beer….Gabe is on a growth spurt and has spent most of the trip hungry. This is why we have a snack bag at all times....

Josh, despite remonstrances from his older brother, buys a pocket knife on the train.  This is a grandparent sponsored trip and Josh has his own money, so the likelihood that this pocket knife will follow past souvenir pocket knives into the kingdom of lost tools is irrelevant.  (At last report, the train pocket knife was not yet lost, even though the recent move from rental to new house may have altered that status: in this case, entirely understandable!)

 

Aaron broke even on the trip: one College World Series hat became someone else’s souvenir in Eagle, Colorado. It is replaced by one carefully considered cap purchased in Vail.

 

Not thirty seconds after the conductor on the train cautioned everyone to hold tight to their ticket, Lizzie, leaning out the window to take a picture (with, thankfully, her camera on a lanyard!) watched her ticket flutter away under the train’s wheels.  She turned to me, aghast, crying out, ‘I’ve lost my ticket!’ Of course she did! Fortunately, our receipt proved she was accounted for...though this particular blond headed conductor did not look the sort to leave a little girl beside the tracks, 142 miles from Denver…..

The grandparents did their part:  six kids got into the rental van in Kansas City, and six kids got back out four days later.  During those four days, no one got hurt (really), no one got sick, (well, just a little), no one fought or argued (except when they were really really tired).  The cousins were considerate and kind to each other even during the long drive there and back. They helped their grandparents, and they helped each other. I’ll never forget that.  

Nor will I forget drying towels at all hours, the blessed luxury of a washer and dryer for six kids and two adults, Blake bringing back frozen pizzas the night we arrived and how we attacked them like they were gourmet, not just DiGiorno.  No, no one wanted to sleep with Josh...or Gabe...or even Levi, (snoring? kicking?) but it all worked out with the bonus of a bedtime story or two and the chance for this grandma to “tuck in” all her kids…

There was no time to read, no time to use our phones...except to take pictures to send home! Time was the present and that was busy enough....

For a week afterwards, I woke up feeling I should count noses….

And “If"….I could do it all again, I would!

Weather Change

The weather ruled our summer.  From June on, there was never a day that didn’t revolve around the dry skies, the dry ground, the heat.  We pulled hoses at work. We ran sprinklers at home. We drenched for crown rot and sprayed for pests. And while the fall plants responded to the attention beyond all hopes, no effort of man was sufficient to sustain the fields, the roadsides, or take the gray haze of fires far away from the skies.

So when I drove home in a driving rain the other day to Tarkio’s empty and quiet streets, I pictured the inhabitants of every house inside, dry and cozy, watching water stream down the windows, down on their knees in thankfulness for the refreshment. If they weren’t literally kneeling, surely, like me, they felt a relief, a deliverance over and above all expectation.  While our human brains know the weather will always turn, our human hearts can be discouraged, beaten down, wrung out of gratitude.

Rain.  Some years, some droughts, you kinda stop looking for it; the forecast never changes, the heat never wavers.  But this year, we could see the rain on the radar: it was always out west or up north. Even if those green or yellow reflections drifted across the Missouri, nothing reached the ground.  Showers would pop up...and fizzle out. Neighbors and friends and acquaintances all across the state told the same tales. The USDA forecast record yields everywhere else. But here is Mis-er-y, all we had was company….

Missouri Drought summer 2018

Then, one day, as sudden as a tropical monsoon, the rains came.  The first three inches didn’t budge our pond a bit. But the next week’s inch brought a few inches of cover to the bare cottonwood log on the bank.  The next two inches made the grass grow rank so quickly that lawn mowers roared into life early every morning. If it wasn’t raining! But we didn’t complain, even if Labor Day activities were of the indoor variety and we squelched and slid on the sodden grass loading our trailer loads of drippy mums.

The corn fields are weary and bedraggled, yellowed prematurely with big brown dead patches on the steeper thinner hillsides. Blake brought in ears from the bottom and ears from the hillside; the hill ears are thinner and shorter, like the lean and mean cows of Exodus.

It will be a leaner and meaner corn harvest.  Sometimes the ears don’t dry properly when the plants die prematurely.  The lines at the elevator will certainly be shorter. Maybe we will pick most of the corn before we even start soybeans, which appear to be maturing  normally. But the nearly 7 inches of rain in August will refresh the earth, replenishing our shallow wells. The football boys won’t land as hard on the field.  There will be fewer grass fires or field fires than last year. Perhaps the cover crops we sow will germinate. Here’s hoping the trees and grasses, gardens and crop land will go into the winter chock full of moisture and ready for more than 2018’s 48 hours of spring!

July Afternoon at Deadman's Hollow Corral....

Lee to Gabe:  "When your dad yells, he's being intense....not angry."

Abbie to Lee:  "I need my hair up...because the pigs like to eat my hair when I clean out the feeder."

Pigs: (Squealing!)

Ellie: (screaming)

Ann to Aaron: "Get the baby!"

(on crutches) 

"Don't run!!"

Lizzie and Matt: Daddy/ Daughter dance.....

The moms close the deal....

Family portrait...Landry tries to wipe off the "pig dirt"....and it's off to weigh!