February 13, 2005
John Deere and Stihl
Over coffee this morning, I was trying to find excuses not to go to the gym. It was too sparkly a Sunday morning to want to get into the car and drive to somewhere to be inside. I suggested moving the pile of firewood in front of the house, but Lorenz claimed that he first had to move the firewood already in the house. 
He said if I really wanted to go outside and do something, I should take chainsaw and tractor and do firewood in the back 40. However, he knew full well that I can operate neither, and possibly he sensed a pout coming on but more likely he was also trying to find excuses to avoid sitting inside himself, working on apprentice guidelines and job descriptions. Consequently, he had his safety gear on in no time flat, and I trudged off to the bush to meet him near the carcass of the goat (don't ask).
The idea was that Lorenz would cut deadwood into manageable chunks with the chainsaw, I would pile them into the tractor bucket, and then they'd be taken back to a pile by the house where they'll dry for next year's firewood. The only problem was that cutting the deadwood and driving the tractor back and forth was about 90% of the effort, while loading the bucket was, at most, 10% - and Lorenz helped me with that! The first time the tractor went back to the house, I entertained myself 
by throwing snowballs for the dog (Boris loves being pelted with snowballs, he thinks they're candy and eats them), admiring the contrast of moss and snow, and piling the next load in one spot. As you can no doubt surmise, that sort of excitement wears off pretty quickly - and then, with the new load already pre-piled and Lorenz helping, I was down to about two minutes of work every half hour (if you're keeping score at home, that's now less than 10% of the time...)
What to do? I'm terrified of chainsaws, and Lorenz is incredibly possessive of his tractors. But wait! In the next few minutes, I was allowed into the secret little club of people who have driven one of Lorenz's tractors! With little warning, he started talking about clutch, gas, brake and the hydraulics of the bucket, and showed me a bunch of things with orange knobs and reminded me of the "sag" in the bucket and next thing you know, the switch was flicked to four wheel drive and I was on my way to the house on the tractor! My excitement was pretty much exactly the same as the time I was put up on the tractor when I was eight years old to steer it back and forth across the field while other people tossed stones into the trailer - but this time, my feet reached the pedals! In my excitement, of course, I forgot about the hydraulic sag and dumped my first load of wood in the middle of the path. Fortunately, I did remember the caution to put the bucket all the way down when I stop the tractor (because that's the parking brake!) and I remembered which orange knob stops the engine. From then on, remembering to keep tilting the bucket back, I made it to the house without mishap.
The next three trips were full of potential screw-ups - for example, I could easily have dumped the bucket by mistake again, hit the blind donkey (she tried her best to step in front of the tractor), whack the bucket on a tree if I turned too sharply while backing up or do some of the things depicted on the warning label. Fortunately, though, I did none of these things, and merrily went about my new job while Lorenz felled dead trees and other intimidating things (Boris stayed far away from chainsaw, falling trees and tractor-driving trolls). I didn't want to stop: Lorenz was letting me drive the tractor!
My tractor-driving excitement is matched, by the way, by Lorenz's delight in his new toy. He went to some farm show this week, and came home with tales of a root washer. Just in case the toy's name hasn't tipped you off yet, a root washer *washes roots*. You dump the roots in the washer, lower the top half into the water-filled bottom half, turn it on and the motor drives a belt and rotates a synthetic brush - the roots are pushed up towards the brush by the belt, which pushes them back down, and, in theory, gently cleanses the delicate roots. I say in theory because for now, we've only seen it sit there - on Lorenz's to do list this week is to buy the necessary ingredients to do the wiring for the motor. Tarrah is already hoping to wash carrots on Tuesday - and that's the first time I've heard someone looking forward to washing carrots, especially in winter when the barn is very chilly.
But it will be a while before there is a new crop of roots. For now, the greenhouse is slumbering in the snow next to my peaceful drifted-in garden. Lorenz needs to do his seed inventory and order this year's varieties soon, though, because it will be time to start the plugs before we know it. 
I've been doing some research of my own using gardening magazines: my plan is to make like a cuckoo and secretly seed flats full of flowers and then smuggle them into the greenhouse and let Lorenz and future interns take care of them. Then, before anyone figures out they're not tomatoes, I'm going to transplant them into the garden!
Pretty and sparkly as the farm is with all this snow, I can't wait for spring! Soon, it will be warm enough to sit in the adirondack chair on the south side of the barn on sunny Sunday afternoons. Soon. I hope. Otherwise, I too will go batty and start making strange faces at the oddest moments.