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Browsing Tag: #hardwork
November Writing Challenge, Day 6 The carpet. The carpet was ugly, and it would have to go. The sooner the better. The living room carpet had long since been torn up and thrown out, exposing golden Clear Grade oak hardwood flooring. It wasn’t beautiful and perfect anymore, though. After almost 40 years of being suffocated by a truly hideous parade of carpeting ranging from a puke green to what was once a burnt orange shag, the hardwood was marred by spots where the rubber backing had stuck and countless staple holes. But it cleaned up okay, and until I could afford to have it refinished, it would have to stay. Strategically placed rugs were lain. The first rug was almost as bad as the carpet-a blood red rose design knockoff Oriental that what it lacked in beauty made up for in size. But it would have to do. I had been promised that the hardwood floors ran the length of the house, except in the kitchen and bathrooms. I was fixing to find out. Next was the bedroom I was taking over, due to it having an en-suite bathroom. I had stayed in the master bedroom for years, but there was no discernable difference in size. The closet was the main attraction in there. I enlisted some help and it didn’t take long to rip the decades old carpet out. We got the hallway while we were at it. Indeed, the same hardwood greeted…
This is the first time in many years the thought of spring doesn’t fill me with dread. Spring doesn’t mean EXACTLY the same thing in Co-op circles as it means for most people. For the majority, spring means warmer weather, maybe thinking about planting a garden, or putting in a pool, going to the lake, planning barbeques. Spring at the Co-op means an absolute onslaught of people, demanding grass and vegetable seeds, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, you name it. Spring means a season of calves brought in thunderstorms by heifers, the constant nuisance of flies, and the persistant worry of when the rain’s coming-will it be soon enough? Can it hold off till you get this last field spread? Old men and new farmers haggle over buggies and sprayers and sod drills. They raise Cain that the price of chemicals are cheaper by three dollars the next county over. They gripe and complain about being subjected to “all these changes” and “you about can’t make a livin’ anymore, with you a-robbin’ us blind!” Yes. Clearly, I’m the one to blame. There’s the warehouse screaming on the radio to quit sellin’ Kennebec seed potatotes, how many times do they have to tell us we’re out till Houser gets back from Tenco? The phones are ringing with people wanting to know when…
I have a friend who is married to a farmer. They are raising their boys among the cows & corn. The boys have calves they bottle feed & sell, they have horses they check fences astride. They enjoy the day to day life of being outside, helping their daddy tend to the newly born, the ailing, the healthy. One day, I was disheartened to read on Facebook about how one of their sons was being ridiculed at school. A schoolmate called him poor because he lives on a farm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trust me, farmers aren’t poor. They meet struggle every day of their life. They are up against it at least fifty percent of the time. Imagine if your livelihood was dependent upon the weather. If it doesn’t rain one day & the sun shine the next, you might be looking for a job in town. And then when hay is ready to cut to feed the cows all winter, you pray for three straight days hot & clear. To get your hay to grow, it must be fertilized. Fertilizer runs around $500 a ton. One ton will fertilize roughly seven acres. If your fields yield well, seven acres of hay will produce maybe 100 rolls of hay. A cow will eat half a roll a day in the wintertime if their pasture is thin. You figure four months of winter, which is 120 days. If you have thirty cows, that…
Y’all settle in. There are a few places in this world where life gets real. You know what I mean. Where rubber meets the road. Hospital rooms, church altars, courtrooms, gravesides, and bars at two a.m, to name a few. Delmar Maples was my co-worker for my cumulative years at Co-op. He didn’t say much, but that’s ok, because what he said counted. He always, always, said “Good Morning,” (which seems to be becoming less common these days). If yes or no was adequate, that’s what you got. I think the first time we ever really had a conversation was when he was showing off his first grandson, he carried him all over the store, grinning ear to ear. Delmar was a small man, with ropy muscled arms, dark eyes, and a scraggly beard. He was never without a mesh-backed “old man” hat that he carefully folded down in the center, essentially making a crown around his head. He traveled with a limp & a whistle. Delmar changed the oil in Patsy many times, & filled a bunch of propane tanks for me & the rest of Sevier County. He didn’t complain or ask for a break in the rain & sleet & snow. He simply bowed his head to the weather & kept working. He crushed boxes too, & I’m ashamed to admit how many times he saved…
