doing what's right in front of you

I was looking for a picture frame at Goodwill. Gotta be the size 12 by 17. Found one for a couple of bucks. Back at home, I was getting ready to strip the picture out of the frame when I noticed the backing was glued on. Realizing that this had been professionally done, I gave the picture a closer look. It was a child's watercolor of the nativity scene...big smiles on the three wise men's faces.
I inspected the backing closer and saw that there was a bit of faint writing in the corner. "Drawn by Peter Schmeltz, age 5." And the framing shop was in Detroit, Michigan.
Well, given the fact that I had purchased this frame to frame a picture from my childhood that I had just stumbled upon, I paused. What the heck--I'll google this guy's name and see what comes up.
And, I found him: Peter Schmeltz, a music professor at a university in St. Louis. And an email address, too.
Hi Peter,
This probably will rank as one of the more unusual emails you'll probably receive...
I recently purchased a picture at a Good WIll store. Bought it for the frame. The picture is a hand-drawn self=portrait of a young boy and, on the back, it says Peter Scmeltz, age 5, and was framed at a shop in Michigan. I was just going to throw it away, but then got to thinking....so I googled it and found you. Thought I'd mention it in case you are this boy all grown up and in case you're wanting the picture. I'll wait a day or two until I hear back from you.
~martin

And I waited--more than a day or two--and he wrote back. He was surprised, of course, and couldn't imagine how something he drew as a kid could end up out at a Good will in Eastern Washington, but mused that he did grow up in the Detroit area, so he thought that it might be his.

I offered to box it up and send it to him, just in case in might be. And it turns out that it was. He recognized it right away as something he drew in first grade and gave to his teacher....

So, let's connect some of the dots here: I'm searching for a frame to frame a drawing from my childhood when I come across a picture from someone elses childhood. It's of baby Jesus in the manger, and here we are in the middle of Advent.

So what's this mean for Peter? I don't know. Perhaps he's estranged from family and this will bring healing. Maybe he's grown away from the religion of his childhood and this will remind him of the true meaning of Advent. Maybe this won't mean much of anything at all.

Most likely, this won't be revealed to me. That's okay. I am just supposed to do what's right in front of me and trust that there is purpose in the way God has woven the fabric of our lives together.

Just in time

I'm not sure how one smells it in the air or feels it in the bones, but, there it was, that feeling: Snow coming. Big snow coming.

I was pushing hard to get the windows in. Windows that, by rights, I shouldn't have been trying to lift solo, let alone hoist up a 30 ft tower and then out on a cat walk and heft and nail into place. But, there was that feeling about the snow, so seven four ft. by five ft. thermopane windows in custom, just-made casings got lifted up the tower by block and tackle. After squaring them and making certain of plumb, I nailed them off with wedges and 10 penny galvanized finish nails.

Three hours later the snow began. Overnight we got 14" and the tempature dropped to single digits. Autumn is over and Winter has begun.

The race is on

"Snow in the upper elevations" caught my ear on the morning radio.

Dang. I am so close. Trying to get the roof done, I have one more day cutting boards and then still need to get 30# roofing felt down to keep things dry thru the winter. We'll see.

Millie, the crane is shut down for the season, but she doesn't mind me using her boom to set up an old-fashioned block and tackle to hoist building materials up top.

Setting the principal rafters--eight of them coming to a point at a 12/12 (45 degree angle) pitch took quite a bit of head scratching. The rafters themselves are 2 1/2" by 5", 10 ft. long, sawn old-growth dough fir and are heavy as all get out. And to make matters worse, they all come up to a center metal bracket that I fashioned out of a 3 ft long chunk of 12" well casing. I welded sixteen 1/4 steel brackets with double thru holes for 1/2" grade 5 bolts around the circumference of the pipe to hold the rafter ends securely. The goal here was not to have to have any collar ties messing with the upwards view of the roof in my room.

But, how to get all this heavy stuff 12 ft. up in the air? I decided to use a 16 ft. long piece of 2" pipe with a pulley up top and a rope coming back down. My buddy Terry (all dicey projects of mine must involve Terry) and I pulled the 70 lb bracket assembly up the pipe like raising a flag on a flag pole. Once we got it up and suspended, then we began lifting up the rafters and bolting them into place.

As all of this is happening, the welding, the hammering and sawing, the figuring, and chance-taking and dreaming, I realize that this project is what I am supposed to be doing right now. There's this dead-on rightness that I can feel if I stop and become aware of it. This feeling that I am doing just what I am supposed to be doing.

simple pleasures

Pine has a smell all its own. And old-board pine even more so. That's one of the simple pleasures that comes from using hand tools. No screaming powered saw, no ear plugs, no safety glasses. Just the smooth even cuts of a 12 point Disston cross-cut with a sharp blade. Thumb guides the first few strokes and then long even pulls, letting the saw do the work--your arm just guides.

I am putting the roof boards on top of the newly-set rafters. These tongue-and-groove boards were rescued from the Park View Motel right before they tore it down. Beautiful knotty pine milled up in Twisp, Washington in the 1950's. A deep amber color made that way by time, varnish and sunlight.

As I measure and saw boards, I think about all of what these boards have seen over the years in the motel...families on vacation, lonely business men trying to be less so with a bottle, kids jumping from bed to bed, late-night rendesvous. And now it is my roof. Hopefully, the boards will look down at an equal amount of living in their new location.

Ears to Hear

Today I was downtown Wenatchee walking along the railroad tracks and I came upon a nice looking old Mack tractor with a flatbed trailer behind it. Getting closer to the rig, I saw that a homeless person or people had built a shelter of sorts underneath. A mattress or two, a jumble of dirty clothes, cooking pots. I didn't want to intrude, so I kept walking.
Twenty feet away, I realized that I needed to go back. Go back and leave some money there. I grabbed a rock from the railroad ballast and a twenty out of my wallet and stooped down into the opening of the shelter. Nobody home. Amidst the beer cans and the other debris, I left that 20 under that rock.

And later today, I saw a family that I know was just returning from a cancer consult in Seattle. After battling it several years ago, her cancer has returned. I could feel the heaviness in the air.

"This time it looks particularly bad," she simply said, as if talking about tonight's weather forecast. "And chemo is no longer an option--only surgery."

So, this evening I'm thinking. Praying, actually, before my meal. "So, why, God, do I get to be golden boy with so much going for me and so many cool things happening in my life, and she, (my friend) has a very sucky day. And the homelss person a very sucky life?"

This wasn't a rhetorical question--I really wanted to know. I mean I raised the tower yesterday successfully. I get to go to London tomorrow for a week. I've never gone hungry. I have two incredible kids...the list could go on for pages.

So, I got the answer. Really. It was God talking to me. It's kinda hard for me to write this. Kind hard to share about this, but truly. God talked and I heard the whisper. Not out loud, not Charlton Heston's voice, but there, there back somewhere in my head or heart or somewhere.

"You got the life I gave you so you can help others." That's what God said.
And I think I get it more than I ever have before. It's not that I am supposed to be Mother Theresa. That was her job. My job is to be Martin. A rather peculiar guy who makes a difference in his own quirky way. Working as a counselor as I did for many, many years--certainly. Giving workshops to help other social workers and counselors develop good kid skills--of course. Inspiring Americorps members to be sin boldly--yep.

But also in other subtle ways, ways that don't allow one to draw a fat magic marker line from cause to effect. Ways that just are part of the big picture and God's incredible rich and funny and preposterous plan. Even tank towers, even 20 dollar bills under rocks for a homeless alcoholic who might just spend it on booze.

The Tower is Up!

Yesterday afternoon was my day. I had to work until 3, and then we were to try to lift the tower after that. A last-minute call cancelled my work day so we could start the lift after lunch. A blessing because, since the project required 5 hours, we never would have made it had we started at 3.

Only Terry could come, all my other helpers were busy. Terry and I thought we could do it alone, but turned out there was no way we could. We needed help and, what do you know, Mark and his son Sam showed up.

As I crawled the crane over to the foundation, I could have easily been off to the right or left by inches or even feet, but things were lined up perfectly.

And, lastly, the myriad things that could have gone wrong that I wasn't even aware of...didn't.

Well, most everything didn't. We had one false start: After getting everything hooked up, looked over and ready to go, I proceeded to begin lifting the tower. I got it up halfway, about 45 degrees, and, all of a sudden, the end of the tower on the ground began rolling. Being round, and there being just enough of a slope, it took off, cartwheeling downhill. And the top chain connection between crane boom and tower has a pivot in it, so it merely spun 'round and 'round, letting the big long cylinder of a tower do whatever the heck it wanted to do. I sat there in the crane, jaw agape watching the unimaginable take place before my eyes.

Then things go exciting. Since the tower end was now rolling downhill, the momentum of the whole thing was swinging my crane boom over sideways. This put my weight out over the side of the tracks rather than in the front. Now I was too heavy and began to tip--not over completely, but enough to really get my attention.

Well, after we began breathing again and took a break to assess the situation, we lowered the tower top end until it was just barely off the ground, and then used the backhoe to push the tower base back up to where it was supposed to be. And you can bet that we also made sure the base would not do the big roll again.

After that it was pretty straightforward. A little iffy traveling the crane with the tower suspended in the air. But, slowly, slowly, we got it there, in place and down on the bolt stubs.

Here we are using the back hoe to hold the back end of the crane down because, as we needed to boom out a bit more, the tower was too heavy for the crane and, without the extra weight of the backhoe, we were getting pretty darn tippy!

Much cheering, back-slapping, and time for dinner.

Soren and I went back out and climbed the tower by flashlight to watch the stars come poking out. A perfect finish to the day.

Oh, so close

All the welding is done. All the boards cut. All the screws placed. It's time to get the tower up in the air. We were scheduled for 3 this afternoon. And then I woke up to wind. It blew hard all day long. Terry came up and we faced the facts: you just don't want a 9,000 lb steel can swinging in the breeze like some big wind chime. Especially if you're going to try to set it down easy on 8 bolts sticking up from the concrete slab.

Still not sure how it's going to go getting all those holes lined up....

I hope to find out tomorrow when we give it another try.

killer hill

Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding.

I never thought I could get tired of welding...but I am. There's been so much to weld and there's still so much to get done. It's tempting to just slam it all together, but I can't--lives are at stake if my welds were to fail and people fall from way up high atop the tower. This adds tension to the work and an intensity that makes for exhaustion at day's end.

Still, it's really good and satisfying work, this making stuff is. As I've mentioned early in this project, I've had this dream of a tower fortress, and here it is becoming real right before my eyes. Today, when I was breaking for lunch, I stopped and looked back behind me at this thing I am creating and was struck by how so very cool this thing is and how fortunate--how blessed--I am. Crane, welder, hundreds of dollars of free steel, the skills, the time, the guts...all this is gift, all this was given to me so that I can be who I am.

Soon, it will be time to lift this dang thing upright. Soon.

Millie made it home

That last 100 ft was a killer. As discussed in a previous post, I almost rolled the crane off the edge of the road when she sank her outbound track into the soft road edge. BTW, how many times do I need to learn the lesson of soft road edges before I stay well away? I'm now recalling the time I had my loaded water truck sink down off the edge....

Anyways, Terry came up this morning and we got to work. Seemed like an easy plan: swing the crane house around so that the rear counterweight was inboard and far away from the road edge, which would put the weight off the outward track. Then let Millie roll backwards down the road a bit until she was back to the center and then proceed back up the road on solid roadbed.

Well...

We couldn't swing the house around because the swing clutch is shot. We then proceed to pull the house around with Ol' Blue, the back hoe, but the swing brake was also shot and wouldn't hold the house from swinging back out precariously over the cliff edge! So we pulled the house around as far as we could and then Terry got underneath the crane and set a chain from the track base to the house bottom so that she couldn't swing back.

Then we were going to roll Millie back, but instead of rolling back, the outward track just started settling in deeper into the soft shoulder. Arghh.
We ended up setting out a bunch of timber planks in front of the outward track and I winched myself up on top by connecting my boom hoist rope to the road grader set on up a head on the road. Once I got up on the timbers, things were looking better, but, I gotta tell you, there was a period of time there where I was really scared that the crane was going to roll over and off the road and take me with her. But, it worked. And Mille got to the middle of the road and then it was an easy drive up the rest of the way to the saddle and the safety of the shop.

The crazy situations I get myself into require just as much craziness to get out, I suppose, plus tenacity, guts, luck, and being watched out for from up above.

Somebody recently sent me an email that speaks to this and was the very best of compliments:

You’re also an inspiration to others....’never before have we seen one man do such much---with so little! You’ve got real grit, which isn’t seen much, anymore.

tower progress

Welding. Lots of welding. I've got the support joists that cantilever out under the catwalk in place and now I'm working on the railings. It's been difficult getting all the geometry correct, but, so far, I'm right on the money. I'm doing first pass with 6013 to get deep penetration into the weld and then following up with 7018. The vertical and upside-down welds, though, are pushing my limits. And always, in the back of my mind, is the reality that these welds must hold well since they will be supporting people 30 feet up in the air.

Terry sent a new pulley down lake on the barge from Holden Village. Man, it's a big one...some 100 lbs or so of old steel. It'll work well for getting Millie, the crane, up the rest of the road and then also for a hook block for Millie when she's lifting heavy loads.

millie's big adventure

I've been trying to get my old Northwest Engineering crane up my road to my mountain top. There's several strikes against this being a successful project: one, the crane dates back to 1953; two, the clutches are worn and she can't pull herself up much of a grade; three, the machine weighs 46,000 lbs; and four, my road is a mile long, steep, and with 5 switchbacks in it.

Nonetheless, I set out to do this with the help of several friends and Alice, my road grader.

It wasn't off to a good strat when I was re-torqueing a few track frame bolts and I felt one snap off. Granted, I was putting 200ft. lbs on it, but it should have handled lots more than that. A minute later, Terry showed up. I thought we were done for the day, but Terry said "Why don't we head up to your shop and see if we can find something to make a new one." Well, we did and we did.

The first attempt didn't work out and I had to back down the road after 4 hours and only 400 ft. But I learned a lot. I found out that the crane cannot pull travel herself up the road and that the grader cannot pull her--the grader tires just start slipping. We did find out that what did work was paying out the wire rope off the drum that is used for lifting objects (She is a crane) and attaching that the the grader. Then I have a buddy drive the grader up the road a ways, set the brakes and blade down i nthe dirt and then I winch myself up to the grader. And then repeat. Many times. Here's us coming up....

Unfortunately, when the road gets steep, the winch is not strong enough to pull the entire machine. Terry, my best idea man had a good one: use a snatch block pully on the grader which would set up a 2:1 mechanical advantage when winching. And here's us going back down...

Our second attempt, several weeks later, used this approach. Worked like a charm. Got up the road, up thru the steepest parts, round the switchback corners and were just about to crest out up top when I happened to notice some metal fragments in the road. I stopped to check. Luckily, because it turns out that the pully block was just about to come apart as the bearing had failed.

We were just about up--and really wanting to get up after working on this all day out in the 100 degree heat without hardly any water--so, we tired to winch me the last stretch without the 2:1 mechanical advantage. I wasn't paying close enoug attention and I drifted too close to the edge of the road. The soft shouldler sucked me down and my right track started sinking and the entire crane house began listing over the edge. There's a big steep drop-off there and the crane was way too close for comfort.

Here you can see how she is itching to pop a wheelie. Notice how the track frame is lifting....

We began wrestling with options and strategies and ideas. All I could visualize was a quart of ice water. I listened to that little voice in me saying "Martin, time to shut it down. Now, before things totally come unraveled..." I surprised myself by listening to that voice this time. SO, now Mille sits--almost home--for several weeks until I can get a new pulley block and a plan for getting her off of the soft shoulder.

tower work

I've been working hard on getting the tank ready to haul back to the foundation...welding in floor joists, laying in floors, cutting in and framing out windows.

Here's the floor joists. 2 1/2" pipe on 2' centers.

I had a bunch of salvaged 2 x 10's to use for the floors. It took quite bit of head-scratchin' to figure out how to get all the floor boards cut to the correct curvature of the tank. Each board hits the tank wall at a different place, creating a wide variety of chords. I couldn't cut them too big and bring them in to size as they wouldn't fit in the tank and, if they were too small, well, then they're too small! It worked out pretty well, though.

The windows were also very tricky. Not only was it difficult to cut out the hole correctly using a cutting torch on 1/4" steel, but the curves made it hard to get the size right and the windows I am using--scavenged from somewhere so long ago I don;t even remember where I got them--are a bizarre trapezoid shape. I'll make the windows operable as I'm pretty sure the tower will be hot inside if I can't ventilate it with open windows.

moved the tank tower

I admit it: my heavy equipment--road grader, dump truck, crane--are much about being Tonka toys for a big kid. Albeit very large and very heavy, but, still, it's me in a bigger sand box doing what I used to do as a kid.

There, I said it. But, what's even better is when you can have a real kid helping you. I had done as much to the tower as I could down at the barn: installed two floors and windows and door. Now, it was time to move it on back to where the tower will be raised and my son, Soren, assisted me in the ceremonial dragging of the 10,000 lb steel tank back to it's location.

I knew that the only thing I own that has a chance of being able to drag this heavy thing was my road grader. I welded two steel lugs 180 degrees from each other on the tank end and hooked up wire rope with clevis links. Fired up the grader and off we went. I'll let the video speak for itself (along with Soren's commentary while he was filming.)

Next will be getting Mille, my 1954 NW 25 crane up my road so it can do the heavy lifting at the tower site.

missed it

Yesterday on my way to work, driving fast, late, I passed by a young woman walking along side the road. Not a tourist dressed in the latest colors, but a local needing something.
"Wanna ride?" I asked, pulling over.
She looked in at me. A heavy woman, young, with angry brown eyebrows and thick lips.
She did, but it turns out she was going to Chelan, and I to Manson.
"Oh, well," I said.
"Thanks anyway." She walked with a quick stride of someone late for something, a big Walmart purse up high on her shoulder.
The rest of my drive to work I turned this interchange over and over in my mind. I should have driven her to Chelan and then doubled back to Manson. She's got 5 miles to walk. No doubt someone else will pick her up. And probably somebody did, but it misses the point.
I had the opportunity to offer kindness. I could have finally met this woman who I've wondered about for a long time. You see, I know about her. She lives in a trailer I drive by most every day. She has three big, mean dogs tied up short in her yard next to over-turned apple bins for shelter. If, when, they're loose they chase my car. There's a baby stroller that hasn't moved in the driveway for years. There's usually a load of laundry hanging up inside against the one large trailer window. Another window is broken out--sometimes it has a piece of plywood up against it and sometimes not. Driving by, I've wondered outloud to my kids about that: why it's open sometimes and not others. Even toyed with the idea of going up to the door, knocking and offering to fix it. I haven't, of course--too awkward.
And here I had the chance to meet her, to find out about what her story is, to save her feet those 5 miles.
I missed it. I miss alot of these. Sorry, God. Keep trying please.

The place between the two

Worked on my tower today. Such a dynamic day: rain, sun, purple clouds, hail, strip the coat off, coat back on, snow, blue sky. A day of opposites all stiched together.
I was thinking more about that while I was standing next to my metal saw. I had 36 brackets to make out of 1" x 1" x 1/4" thick angle iron. This meant making 36 cuts at the power metal saw, a big contraption on wheels with lubricant pump[ that feeds the cut with water/oil mix. Anyways, standing there watching the cuts, I got to thinking about the auction where I got this band saw. After I bought it, I found out that the auction was due to the guy's death which was a suicide.
And here I was using the tool he most likely spent quite a bit of time staring at while operating it--just like I was now. What were his thoughts? Despair, anger, loneliness...most likely all those that then turned to just an empty dullness, since suicide is just the final move for a life already mostly dead.
My thoughts, and my project is so different than that man's reality. Building a giant fort for my kids to play in. Giviing life, finally, to a crazy dream that I've had since my own childhood. Standing and coaxing the blade in the cut and humming songs and feelings so blessed that I had this whole day to play, to create.

Those two very different states of mind--his and mine--can turn on a dime, can change in a moment. A dog is gone, a dog comes home. A car's on the road, a car's in the ditch, a person loved is suddenly a person being buried. It's so damned hard to understand how this package must come this way, this gift of life. Like take-out food brought home with things inside you don't want, this bittersweet mix of all of it--best and worst. In what happens to us, iin what we are capable of, in what we witness in others and happening to others. I don't have anything more to say about that. I do know this, though: for me, God and the way of following God I choose (I'll call that religion) are at this intersection of the sweet and bitter. Showing me, helping me, holding me.

The start of something not very practical

So, for a while now, I've been wanting to do this. About 40 years give or take a few. I can't remember when and where it began, but I can clearly remember my crude drawings, done in red ink on large white paper. And the vision was pretty much always the same: a tower fashioned into a fortress. Multiple floors, ladder to get up and down, tall and round, with a special floor up top. The get-away, the place where it could just be for me and nobody could reach me.




Well, now it is happening. I got a hold of a metal tank that's 8' in diameter, 28' long, 1/4" thick mild steel and weighs in at 9,000 lbs. I'm going to stand it on end and make my fort. Pretty simple plan.

First I had to drag the tank down to my shop within reach of my big welder, an old rescued 350 amp Hobart that runs a smooth DC bead. I used hooked Alice up to the tank and dragged it on down, no problem. I had tried with Dr. Brown, the Mack dump truck but, even with weight in the back, the tandem axle wheels just spun out in the dirt.

Now that I've got the tank down where I want it, I can begin the modifications: cutting a door, welding the ladder inside, cutting the hole in the top where the ladder will exit into the top look-out room (my room--the kids get their pick of the 3 floors below) and cutting the windows (9 of them, 3 per floor).

I got most of this done on Sunday afternoon and I was really enjoying the work.

It's hard not to get discouraged sometimes when events chain together in a direction opposite the positive. My darn road grader, Alice (of course Alice...she's an Allis Chalmers) was just one problem after another.

First, when i set out to get her woken up for Spring duty, she's got a flat tire. The front tire that is brand new--and several hundred dollars. A big gouge in the side wall that the boys at Les Shwab doubt can be repaired. I have maybe 3 hours of use out of that tire.

Then I discover a big crack in the engine block. I use only water, no antifreeze, in this machine and somehow there was still some water left when I drained it in the fall.

Then I find a leak in the radiator.

The thing is, I've got work to do with this old girl before all the moisture leaves the road. It must run.

Well, turns out Ron at Les Schwab got the tire fixed and, when I went to get it with my truck, he said "No charge."

JB Weld repaired the crack in the block. Two big bottles of radiator sealer plugged the leak in the radiator. I bought two new 12 volt 850 amp/hour batteries so I could start her easily, rather than roll starting it as I have been for the past 3 years.

And, just like that, my outlook on life changes.

The dog is home!

It's a great Easter story: Dog gets lost on Good Friday and returns home on Easter Monday.
I had written the previous post about losing Badger on Sunday evening. I still had hope, though not much. I mean, after all: three days, two snowstorms, a dog who's fourteen years old, and too many coyotes in the mountains to count.
Any remaining hope was dashed Monday morning, when I woke to find yet more snow had fallen. It was really hard to get the image out of my head of good ol' Badger pulled down by a pack of coyotes, bites taken out of him at will until he died in the snow.
Anna called first thing in the morning to ask.
"Did he come home in the night, Dad?" She quietly asked.
"No, honey, he didn't. Maybe today he'll show up." I said, trying to be positive.
"It looks like it snowed a bunch more up there..."
"No, just a skiff, really." I lied.

And then, ten minutes later, she calls again. Frantic on the phone.
"Dad! Dad! Badger's here! He's down here!"
My first reaction was anger. I could only think that Anna was playing some kind of cruel prank on me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I opened the front door to go to school and Badger was sitting here on the front step.
So, for those of you know don't know, my wife and I are split up and the kids are part time with her and part time with me. Leigh's house is down in town and somehow the dog made it out of the mountains, all the way down to town, and found her house. Yes, Badger's been to that house before, but how he would be able to find his way there, miles over terrain he's never been on, is not much short of miraculous.
I'm hesitant to use the word miracle, but no others really fit. And, why not really? There's all kids of things that happen every day around us that are miracles, really. We just get used to them: sunsets, one's heartbeat, love despite all odds, the never-ending energy of children. And Badger--an old, tired, but needed, dog reminding us of what Easter is all about.

When dogs go missing

My Good Friday was especially black this year. My two dogs got lost out behind our place in a freak Spring blizzard and ended up not coming home Friday night. Saturday noon, my younger, stronger dog limped on in, visually shaken and very hungry. My old guy, Badger, wasn't with her though.

Since the storm had ended and I knew her tracks would be strong and fresh I headed out to see of I could find Badger by re-tracing Susie's steps.

That darn dog. I followed her tracks many miles, farther and farther away from home--over 3 ridges, down thru many gullies and traversing several mtn's until, on a south-facing slope, I ran out of yesterday's snow and prints. I figure the two of them got dis-oriented in the blizzard and ended up farther from home than they realized, and then ran into a pack of coyotes. Susie, being young and quick (she was bred to be a sled dog) got away, but Badger, still strong, but also thirteen years old, was most likely worn down and then pulled down.

Today, after Easter Service, my daughter, Anna, was adamant about going out with me one last time and looking for Badger. I wasn't even hopeful that we'd find him alive, but even finding what's left of him would be helpful...at least we'd know for sure what happened.

The day's gift was not finding a dog--it was finding within me the ability to be there for my daughter. Sitting under a grand, old ponderosa pine on a ragged ridgeline, I held her tight in my lap as she sobbed.

Not many words, but the ones I did speak were good ones, I think. Ones of how pain comes with love, how there's no escaping this fact, but that pain won't kill you and that there's learning available there.

And for me, too. Learning how to be father, but also spectator. That some times--many times--there are no answers, and there is no way to avoid the sting that comes with living.

What God made you to do

I've been thinking about the question of there being something that we--me, you--have been created for. That, while we can try to do other things, it's not really a best fit. That there might be this one thing (or one thing for a while?) that creates such a "best fit." And that you know it when you are there by the pure joy you feel.

I think mine is making things. One very, very good example would be last week: Down at in my metal bone yard, picking thru things, a few ideas in mind, but nothing specific...and then it all comes together. 15' of 8" pipe, some old rusty 1/16th sheet metal carved out of an an old tank, and a bunch of metal band saw blades. It just feels more right than anything else I do, or have done. Cutting torch, a bunch of fresh 6013 1/8th" welding rod and no plans, nothing on paper, just free-form and whimsical.

Oh, and the shoes. After hanging onto my children's shoes over the years, we offered them up at a garage sale last year. Just a few pair sold and the rest were destined for the local thrift store, but they didn't want them. Everything else in my truck was headed for the landfill, but I just could not throw these shoes out. I brought the box home and stuck it away in the barn, confident that I'd find some use for them. While decorating the metal tree with 40 pairs of little footwear, the title of the sculpture came to me: "Children and thorns."

just one

This morning I started the day weeping. The Haiti numbers did it to me: 4,000 humans beings and 6 latrine toilets. Six. I trust that God is there. I know this to be true in my very core. And I choose to believe that somehow, even with the numbers of 4,000 and 6 that there is some divine order, some bigger picture that my pea brain cannot wrap around. But, how do I sit and drink my coffee and fret about all the many possible things I could do in the day with those numbers of 4,000 and 6?

Well, the phone rang and somebody asked if I would meet with their son. A full-grown son who has just gotten out of chemical dependence treatment--for the 5th time. "Of course," I say.

I put him to work with me laying stone ringed around my newly placed storage tank. We work and talk. No job, no money, no idea about what to do....As the stories come, I realize that this is what I do with the numbers of 4,000 and 6. I look for small numbers close by.

tank's in the ground

Yesterday I dug the hole; today I put something in it. Just happen to have three tanks: two 1700 gallons and one 10,000 gallons. problem is the tanks are out in a field that's still covered in snow and I can't figure out how to get them pulled out of there. My backhoe can lift them, but will slip in the snow. My truck can't lift the tank and will most likely get stuck trying to pull that much. But, I don't know, so I try.

Nope, can't pull a couple thousand pound tank while the wheel are in the snow, not even with 4WD, not even in low.

I go get every chain I've got down in the shop and, stringing them all together, I am able to get the truck out of the snowy field and onto the gravel road. Success. In 4WD low I am just able to get the tank sliding and I don't dare lose my momentum and keep dragging all the way to the sauna. A bit of careful chain rigging and I am able to get the tank up in the air, centered over the hole and down in. Then I back-filled around the tank and there it is. I would have liked it 1 ft lower, but I hit solid rock and couldn't dig any deeper.

According to my calculations, I should be able to drain the splash tank about 10 times before filling this tank. I take a sauna about once a month. So 3 seasons of saunas will fill the tank, and then summer gardening season will drain it. I should have about enough water in the tank to cover all my watering needs for the garden, since I use drip emitters for all the plants. So it's a system in balance: taking saunas, storing the splashtank water and growing tomatos.

for two gallons of fuel

Sunday, after church, after 2 fast-paced, fun-filled days with the kids, after dropping the kids off at Leigh's and it could be a crash-and-burn day: lonely, empty, all too quiet in the house.

A good day to dig with a backhoe, so I dug a hole today. Not mindless digging, mind you. I've been not real happy with dumping the water out of my splash tank every time I fire up the sauna. 200 plus gallons of good useable water gets drained out on the ground after each sauna--water that could be used for the garden. But, since I sauna all year and only garden for one season, I figured I need to cache that water.

Well, my neighbor, Dan, gave me 2 tanks last summer. They are 12 ft. long, 5 ft in diameter and hold 1700 gallons each. So, no, not mindless digging. I dug a hole right in front of the sauna building deep enough to contain that metal tank. Then I'll plump some pipe from the sauna splashtank to this buried tank. I figure this tank can hold the water from about 8 - 10 saunas. And in the area in front of the sauna is where the new garden will go, so I can take the water from the holding tank and go to right to the garden. I think I'll even put rain gutters on the sauna roof and collect that rainwater into the holding tank, too.

While I was digging I was listening to a new favorite song I stumbled on. The Moscow boys' choir singing Psalm 141, "Let my prayers rise up..." A breathe-taking piece that probably has not been played in many backhoes.

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What struck me about all of this was that, and this hit me whilst I stood deep in this huge hole I had just dug, I dug this hole--deep enough to bury a SUV so that nobody would ever see it again--in 2 hours and used maybe 2 gallons of diesel fuel. Think how long it would take to dig this by hand. And I just dug it in its entirety on a whim, after church, and because I felt like it. And all the energy needed was contained in 2 gallons of fuel. A jug of diesel cheated a week's worth of hard labor and aching muscles and blisters. Technology can short-cut some thing and make work-arounds, and there might not be any aching backs. But for all the back aches we can jump over, we're not able to get past heart aches and aches of the soul. "Lord, here my prayer" from myriad thousands of lips on thousands of forty-day stretches of Lents.