Brian's Morning Newsletter

Friday March 5th 2010

Blink, blink, is it morning already?

Good Morning
Indeed, a dim light appears on the eastern horizon, and it ain't me babe. Although, or perhaps, because I've been awake since 3:30 my light isn't particularly brilliant this morning. It has been pretty awesome already. How is that possible? While I was surfing the InterWeb in search of BMN fodder I heard the little bee-boop which signifies that some sort of chat was beckoning. This morning at five it was Dan Fink of Other-Power fame using my GMail chat window. We chatted at great length about an upcoming seminar in which Dan will lecture. He is looking for well-documented post-Other Power workshop attendees for reference. I can't think of anyone more well-documented than me, I said.
I'm The king of Chronicles, if I don't say so myself. Anyway, what's it mean? They are looking for real people to tell stories about life after one of their workshops, well virtual real people. I said "all they need do is run a search at http://outfitnm.com and they will have me quoted."

I have no idea why I woke at 3:30, I did, and wide-awake was I, regardless of the fact that yesterday I unloaded six yards of rock and gravel into the seemingly bottomless mud bog which was once our driveway.  Yeah man, the Dodge dually paid for itself yesterday. Even with one particularly large and heavy load the Cummins 6BT hauled-ass up Nine Mile Hill in fifth gear, and actually accelerated from 55 to 65, totally shocking for a guy who has become accustomed to slowing from 65 to 45 on said same hill. Yeah, I probably didn't need to accelerate, but I did it anyway. I've only owned one other big engined truck, the Ford with a 351 cubic inch eight cylinder gasoline engine, but it never came close to hauling that weight, and at half that (one yard) the V8 felt like most of the VWs I drove on Nine Mile Hill. Here a six cylinder had many times the power of the Ford V8, indeed I don't know why anyone would need that much power in a pickup truck.

Calories, yep, many, many calories. The first two yards were unloaded with shovels by Jackson and me between Macky's house and Jack's house on the first incline of our driveway.  Yes sir, two yards of 2 to six inch rocks disappeared in the deep mud like nobody's business. Howard Sand and Gravel charged a mere $15 per yard for this ungraded river rock. I made three trips, was kilt-dead-tired by 3:00 PM, when fortuitously the last major muddy rut was filled with the last possible shovel-full of rock and gravel we could muster.

Heading out before the ground defrosted was smart, well after the prior day escapade  where I waited an hour too long to head out it wasn't terribly smart. It does show that yours truly can be learnt a thing or two, lucky for me I had the time to recover any dignity I may have lost. So obviously I made it out before the localized surface defrostation, but it took an hour to drive in to town and return, what was my plan at this point? Surely the heavily laden truck would sink to the axles in the first bog it hit.

Sitting there below Jack's hill and the first bog, I revved the powerful diesel motor as if to psych-out the hill itself. Ahead of us lie a formidable obstacle, bog number one. A 15 degree uphill incline, with water oozing between the foot tall tire ruts. I gunned it one more time and hit the hill in second gear. The front end of this huge diesel engine is host to considerable weight, and yes it began to sink in the mud. I was however over the rim of the hill and quickly down shifted, easing forward another ten feet in the deep mud, we came to a halt on a fairly level spot.

This was it, the first bog of semi-defrosted mud. The next bog was going to require a new and better technique. Me and my dualy wouldn't make it across the next bog with that plan. I needed a new plan. Two yards fell with great effort into the mud as I backed the truck over the rock we had just laid. This seemed to work. A plan was developing and I had plenty of time to work it through on the return trip to town. Cujo was happy too, dad finally got the show on the road. Three trips to town, riding up front. It was a dog's dream come true.

You guessed it, I backed the truck up the hill dropping rock in the mud as we went, then driving over the fresh laid rock. Sure the truck sunk a little with all that weight, and a lot more rock disappeared, but in the end the rocks outnumbered the mud, the driveway is once again passable. No need to install the tracks on your four wheel drive to come and visit.

Well here it is, Friday again, and the world hasn't ended miserably, good, good, good!
With all this snow it seems like we are in for a perfect Spring up here in northern New Mexico.
I can't wait to start planting, perhaps this weekend we will get seeds germinating.

Have a great weekend, I know we will
Brian Rodgers

Letters

Re: BMN Mechanical, artistic, spiritual

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