In the Heat of the Summer * July 26, 2007

Greetings Earthlings,

    Here in Florida in July it’s always been ninety plus degrees long before global warming, and most summer days we don’t find it necessary to drink our water we just breathe it in.  The humidity can be like a fist in your face, if you’re not used to it.  It’s more like a good stiff slap in the face, if your used to it.  Either way, it’s hot. 

    Which is why the “vacation” week my husband and I spent doing farm chores in July in Florida goes down in the record books as one of the most death defying stunts we’ve ever pulled.  I mean it’s July—in Florida— and it’s possible to get heatstroke walking to the mailbox.  Which begs the question, can divorce be far behind?

    My husband and I are not farmers, but we are middle aged and experiencing a crisis.  The kids are gone—mostly.  The checkbook is balanced—a lot of the time.  Our time is kind of our own—once in a while.  So we decided to organize our mid-life crisis around the theme of horses and barns.  We bought six acres.  We bought two horses.  So now we build hitching rails—in Florida, in July, in ninety degrees.  It’s hard to imagine having more fun than that—right?

    To build a hitching rail in Florida, in July: 

    A hitching rail consists of three of the most massive posts you can physically locate on this earth, preferably the trunks of one-hundred year-old Redwoods. When lifted by humans these posts should cause the hernia- ion of various body parts.  The holes needed to set the two upright poles should require that you dig holes longer than your arms, so that you eventually will have to stick your head into the hole to continue to dig the hole.  The posts should rip vertebra from their sockets when you actually try to pick them up to put them in the holes.  Then you push all the dirt you just dragged out of the hole, back into the hole.

    The cross pole (the part that all the cowboys throw their reigns around when they park their horses in front of Miss Kitty’s), the cross pole has to be bolted to the two upright poles, after a chain saw artist has craved notches into the top of the two upright poles, so that the cross pole can rest gently in the resulting notches. 

    And that’s the way it went for us—sort of.

    “Sherwood, honey, can’t you see how crooked you’re cutting that notch,” I kindly pointed out to my husband.  Woodchips spewed up into Sherwood’s hair and face dusting his head like a blizzard of wood dandruff.  The sun burned like an irritated hemorrhoid in the sky.

    He stopped hacking at the hitching rail post long enough to mop his dripping face and to say, “If this looks easy then I’m not doing it right.  This chainsaw is heavy.”

    “But, Hon, people carve bears out of stumps of wood with chainsaws—little bears sitting on mushrooms,” I said, and then added, “Can’t you see that top pole is never going in there straight.  I hate to say it but you’re going to have to dig that pole up and turn it.”

    Sweat pooled in Sherwood’s nostrils as he frowned.  “Maybe we should give the chainsaw bear sculptor guy a call, and I’m not digging up that pole.”  He resumed hacking.  The notch got worse.

    Forty-five minutes later, Sherwood dug up the pole so that he could turn it.  I refused to watch and stomped off to mow things down.

    When I got back, the hitching rail was done.  Sherwood stood with a paint bucket in one hand, a paint brush in the other, and a sheen of sweat across his eyeballs.  “Well, how does it look?”

    The hitching rail looked great I had to admit, but then I came to a devastating conclusion.

    “It’s great . . . but . . .” I hesitated. 

    “But what?”

    “I hate to say it.”

    Sherwood froze in stony, sweat dripping horror.

    “You do realize that we’ve put the hitching rail in the wrong place.”

    Before the resulting “discussion” was over my husband informed me that he would rather quit his job and start carving bears out of stumps of wood and sell them on the side of the road—naked—before he would move that mother of a hitching post one square inch.  I accused him of never having loved me. 

    Where upon I stomped off again, only this time to sit in Zoe’s wading pool (fully clothed) and cry.  Zoe (who had been “helping” us by swimming in her pool) put her hand on my shoulder and asked, “Did Poppy scare you?”  And then she showed me her new mermaid move.

    Don’t forget it was really hot out.

    After a reasonable cool down period my husband and I decided not to move the new hitching rail.  We’re just going to build another one in the new and improved location.  But that’s next weekend—in August.

    Pray for us. 

    May the rest of the summer be of a reasonable temperature for you and yours, and remember why move the hitching rail when you can just build a new one?

    Linda (Chainsaw Massacre) Zern

      

     

     

   

       

   

      

   

 

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