November 9, 2012 – Friday

38 degrees/partly cloudy

Pentoga Road

It’s already 38 degrees this morning, about 20 above normal. I’m not going to complain. The above average temperatures are allowing me to get more completed outside than I thought I would and the more I do now, the less I’ll have on this particular project next spring.

Thursday was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. It was still early when I finished writing and sneaked out the door to take my daily stroll. I came over a particular hill and saw a blob lying in the road. I wondered what was on the road kill menu of the day.

A raccoon and a fairly recent kill at that. I gingerly turned the animal over with my foot and saw it had been hit in the head… the fur was still good. Hiding the animal in the trees alongside the rural road, I continued my stroll.

Later, with Sargie busy in the house, I skinned, fleshed, and stretched the fur. It was a youngster and I had to be particularly gentle with the hide.

Arg, nobody had come along during the night and shoveled the load of wood chips from the Man Truck. With a scoop in hand, I added to the growing piles of mulch in the orchard.

It was time for a trip to town. I’m not sure where where the money went, but it poured through my pocket yesterday. Hydraulic fluid, a sheet of Plexiglas, a cutoff wheel, chainsaw oil… and the list goes on and on. Then the phone bill came due, the electric bill. It's simply that time of the month.

One of the things we found was a large stash of Barrys Tea at Insurance Liquidators, Uncle Bobby Love's favorite! Bobby and I led wild party lives in Sitka and used to get together a couple of times a month to enjoy cups of Barrys. I called him Friday from the store to inquire how his supply was. I'll be shipping several boxes north in the next week. Normally costing $10 to $15 a box in Alaska, we found these for a mere $1.69 each.  

We splurged and stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. MMM. I might be a latent chickenaholic.

Sargie said we needed to go to the thrift shop. She had to buy a bra to decorate for an upcoming auction raising money for cancer research. Sister-in-law, Debbie, is one of the shakers and movers for the cause and in the Iron Mountain area, this is quite an event and has been featured in the local daily paper.

A drive was made to Crystal Falls and soon, Sargie was in the bra section. I busied myself in a more manly section of the store. Sargie found what she wanted. It was big, it was gaudy, it was pink.

Next was a stop at Ben Franklins 5 & 10 for glue, sprinkles, dangles, and other things that one normally uses to decorate a bra. Sargie decided to go the Christmas/winter theme. She talked about her plans and I replied it must be a girl thing. We share most activities, but for this one, I simply couldn’t get excited.

It was almost dark when we arrived back at Pentoga. I busied myself bringing in wood, then readied the tractor and chainsaw for today’s activities; cutting and chipping. Bleeding the hydraulic lines on the loader certainly helped its operation and filing and sharpening the chain on the saw should see it effortlessly slice through the trees… until I hit a rock.

We were spending a quiet evening last night; Sargie clipping coupons, me corresponding with students and reading assignments.

Suddenly papers were spread on the living room floor. Sprinkles, dangles, spray glue, and stuff were flying as Sargie practiced her bra-decorating artistic talents. At one point, I wasn’t sure if she was decorating a woman’s under-thing or baking Christmas cookies. With sparkles stuck to her face, she was cute and looked like a Yooper version of the Christmas Fairy… if there is such.

What? A snowflake won’t stay over the middle of the cup area? Did I have any ideas? I shook my head and continued reading. “C’mon,” she implored. “Help me… please?”

Who can deny the requests of a beautiful Christmas Fairy.

“Hell, honey,” I muttered, “I can’t help you.”

But in the end, the Christmas Fairy must have sprinkled some of her magic dust on me when I wasn’t looking. I went out to the barn to get my “doctor’s magnifiers,” (Sargie’s description) and together, we worked on those pesky snowflakes.   With needle and thread, we secured the dangles and solved the current decorative mammary support problems of the evening. The pink bra, now looking more like a  two-headed Christmas tree, will be heading to sister-in-law Debbie for this year’s auction to help cure cancer.

I later thought about it. Ten years ago, I was living alone in a cabin I built alongside a wild and remote Alaskan river north of the Arctic Circle. I battled bull moose, grizzly bears, blizzards, traveling on and reading dangerous rivers, and survived hostile temperatures.

And ten years later? I’m helping to sew snowflakes onto a pink bra covered in sparkles with the Christmas Fairy.

And so are the tales from Pentoga Road…