A Dibble Bar Saturday Night
With age, unique has replaced exciting in how I spend my Saturday night. Last Saturday was unique, and oddly exciting. I want all of my maintenance complete and big projects initiated prior to Memorial Day. On a smaller scale, I want my weekend work about ¾ complete by 2 pm on Saturday. These goals seemed in jeopardy on Saturday afternoon. Lisa and I left that afternoon for dinner at a restaurant and then groceries. I like doing these things on a Saturday evening, but I still had tasks hanging over my head which created an unlikeable third wheel on our date.
In the Clint Eastwood movie, “The Outlaw Josey Wales.” the main character has a quote that I often recall when things look down for me. The quote is “Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up, then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.”
My plight wasn’t as bad as was Josey Wales’, but it shadowed my other thoughts. After we got home and stashed the groceries. I changed into work clothes and went back to work. It was almost dark, but I decided to get mad-dog mean and get this weekend and this summer back on schedule. One of my tasks called for help from a “dibble bar.”
Pennington Soil and Water recently planted trees for us but my rows were a little short so there were a few trees left over. I needed to get those trees planted and nothing works to plant a small number of bare-root trees like a dibble bar. A dibble bar looks like an ax only the sharp edge points straight out instead of a ninety-degree angle to the handle.
So, armed with only a dibble bar, I went to work. Years from now, no one will know I planted those trees, but someone will enjoy them. Perhaps the progeny of the squirrels that chattered at me that evening will tell the story of the tree planter in baggy clothes who wandered through the woods in the dark with a handful of bare-root trees and a dibble bar.
I mowed the lawn that same night. The cutting revealed the puddles of water from the rain that allowed the grass to get so high it disguised the puddles. I use mosquito bits in all the puddles which prevents their larvae from hatching. I knew my sleep would be deeper and dreams sweeter if I knew the next generation of mosquitoes would never see the light of day. So, there I was, shaking mosquito bits into the puddles, in the dark on a Saturday night.
My brother Steve used to tell me that a pronounced, elevated interest in mowing the lawn was proof that a man had become officially “old,” I always thought so too as a farm has many priorities before mowing the lawn. I guess I am now old because I want that lawn cut and getting the trees planted passed for “excitement.”
There is a cautionary tale in this story. If you grew up in town and ever plan to live out in the country, you have to occasionally access your crazy. There are times when you need to plow snow at four in the morning then four in the afternoon, there are times when you must take extraordinary measures to cut the grass and there are times when you must plant trees in the dark with a dibble bar. Finally, if you are going to get things done, there are times when you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. That’s just the way it is. Josey Wales knew it.
