Ordo Ab Chaos

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

I finished up a small post and beam project that I had been working on for the past couple of weeks. The following day the temperatures, which had been hovering around zero all week, suddenly rose with a front bringing a hard day of mid winter rain with it. The ground was frozen and the water, unable to percolate, gathered in pools and ran in streams down every hill and gully. I decided to take a day and pull my shop back into shape, to maintain the tools and equipment that I had been using and return them to their rightful place.

My oldest son had been working on a boat and took the rain day to give me a hand. And so, after we finished chores we went into the garage barn and set to work. No matter how often I try to maintain some sense of order and discipline with the various aspects of the farm, things get out of hand and I have to devote a full day just to get back to a starting point. There are always extra five gallon buckets- we use them for everything from picking up slops from local restaurants to storage for lengths of chain, extra nails from a split box, used baling twine, rock salt for the ice, potting soil mix, etc.

Their utility is exceeded only by their ubiquity and in virtually every corner of the barn we pull the buckets to the center of the room and dump them, one by one of their contents and file through the mix of hardware and brushes, tools and electrical parts, winnowing out the garbage and cast offs from the useful and the utile. My son takes charge of organizing the chain saw room under the stairs, lining up the bar chain oil totes and fuel cans, the accessories and kevlar armor we wear hung on their hooks, sharpening the chains to a razor edge and sheathing each bar before returning them to the shelves. The helmets hang next to the choker chains and peaveys, the old military ammo cans with their water tight seals filled with coiled rope and cable, files and keels in coffee cans on the in their cubbies and the extra bars and chains hung by size on hooks.

If you had to you could find what you need in the dark when he’s done and we secure the ancient brass latch, a worn and aged American flag tacked taut on the front of the closed door. I take each power tool and blow off the dust and debris with the compressor and change baldes and belts and discs as needed, oil and grease the fittings and adjustments and return them one at a time to their carrying cases and stow them in their cabinet; power saws, belt sanders, disc grinder, sawzall, palm sander, planer, impact driver, rotary hammer drill, zero clearance multi-tool, drills, jig saw and worm drive. We hang the galvanized wash tubs we used recently when we slaughtered back up on their wooden wall pegs, scrubbed and sanitized until the next time they’d be needed, probably when the first greens are harvested.

We leave the big center door pulled open on it’s track and listen to the sound of the rain falling in a steady downpour all morning and afternoon, relentless, melting the last of the remaining snow into desultory piles of icy remnants piled along the edges of the fence lines and roadway. My son hijacked my radio, usually set to a talk station or public radio from the next town, so that he can play his music from a device he carries with him everywhere. His taste in music echoes my own in many ways and when it doesn’t I find myself asking questions about his discoveries and mention the influences I hear.

We both are fans of older, classic rock, like Pink Floyd and The Beatles and I have swayed him to listen to some of my favorite lesser known artists like Brand X, Jeff Beck, Chet Baker and Vanilla Fudge. He has introduced me to his favorites, like Cake, Earl Sweatshirt and Beirut. We’ve both agreed on Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane, Genesis as long as it’s early stuff and Johnny Cash- especially the later work. He listens to some things I can’t take and when those cuts come on I’ll say so and he’ll jump to another, mostly punk sounding songs without much to them and I have learned that he’s never going to appreciate Pat Methany the way I do so I skip those when he’s around.

It’s oddly calming to sort through a hundred different types of things trying to find a place for them with someone else, talking only in snatches about a wide variety of things as they come to mind, the last novel we’ve each read, our mutual pleasure in punking political pollsters when they call, his upcoming walkabout around America and the places he wants to see and the things he wants to do.

My son is leaving. I saw this day coming for some time now, probably long before he did. He’s finishing up his first year as an adult on his own, he’s established himself as a dependable worker with people outside of our family by doing everything from furniture moving to house painting and landscaping. He’s moved from project to project, week by week earning his own income. doing his own shopping and laundry, paying his way and making rent promptly each month by the efforts and diligence he practiced over the years under our roof. His free time has been spent in the company of his friends, or sleeping in, his favorite pastime, but he has also been available to us as well, stopping by every week or so and lending a helping hand.

He talks with his brother and sister in the same snarky tone he used before he left, but there is an almost nostalgic warmth in it these days and he makes sure to tell them he loves them every time he leaves and you can see in their eyes the respect he has earned over the years from always being on their side, even when they were at each other’s throats. For the last month he has been spending a few hours working with me on projects like the one we worked on in the garage barn, not because I needed a hand so much as he wanted to give it. He’s been planning his trip across the country a little bit at a time, building a camping kit so he can make his way as inexpensively as possible out of New England and in a circuitous route that will take him to places like Asheville and Zion, White Sands and Glacier National Park.

He plans on stopping to see family in New Jersey and Virginia, friends in Florida and New Mexico and after a traverse of what we figure to be a little over five thousand miles in three months, to wind up in the one place that has captured his imagination for about as long as I can remember, the Pacific Northwest. My son likes rain and overcast skies and it suits his demeanor. He has always been an exceptionally funny and intelligent observer of people and things, but his character is one of quiet deliberation. He is the soul of probity. I’ve told him everything I could remember of my visits to places like Portland and Seattle but I remind him that twenty years is a long time in America and it has likely changed a great deal.

He’d probably learn more from watching a few episodes of Portlandia than listen to me recount my stories of doing hell gigs in Tacoma and Corvallis. We make lists together on blank sheets of paper; regional foods he’d love to try, like the handmade tamales I bought from a Pueblo woman at an empty crossroads near Four Corners that tasted better than any restaurant dish I have ever eaten in my life. There are scenic things he has on his mind that he wants to catch firsthand, the Grand Canyon, Rushmore, the St. Louis Arch, Biltmore and Pompey’s Pillar. He wants to make 100 miles a day, camp out if the weather is good and stay in cheap hotels or the back of his truck if it’s not.

I’ve shown him the kinds of equipment I traveled with when I was doing stand-up, the two man pop up tent and a decent sleeping bag, a two quart pot, a cast iron pan and a stainless steel wire refrigerator shelf to serve as an ad hoc grill to cook whatever local produce or meat he can rustle up. He’ll take fishing tackle and rain gear, plenty of staples from the farm like maple syrup and dried fruit and there are lists of the kinds of things he’ll want to do when he’s not alone, hooking up with friends who’ve gone off to college, meeting my old agent and trying his hand on stage at a comedy club in the Midwest, visiting an old friend from up here who retired to try his hand at amateur archaeology.

He’s worked out a prudent budget and I’ve clued him in on taking advantage of things like Church Suppers in small towns and regional events that most people have never heard of, like the Miles City Roundup in Montana, the shad run on the Delaware River, watching for UFO’s over the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I’ve made my own list for him, contacts from over forty years, former Army buddies, old classmates who’ve moved on to points north, south, east and west, a professional glass blower, a forest service firefighter, stand-up comics and Amish farmers I’ve come to know over the years. He can stop or drive by, but at least he will have some points of contact should he need them and people who will open their homes to him and maybe point out some things he might not want to miss. His mother is, of course, concerned.

She believes he should have a plan, as if the things he’s been doing do not qualify. She believes that he should at minimum have employment waiting when he reaches his destination, work on WWOOF farm, attend a writing program at a college, something concrete. I’ve told him that if his plan is to experience the world so that he can become a better writer, his current passion, he should have a blog that he can post on and share his journey if with no one else, his family back home. I’ve asked him to either call or text his mother daily so that she will worry just a little less than if we hear from him when the mood strikes. I have explained to him that the road can be an anesthetic, a means to forget the world and the life you’ve lived in order to create something new of yourself, a means of becoming someone else. That is a siren that is hard to resist, but one that sings to everyone.

We piled cans and bins and bags and containers filled with every kind of mismatched and unused accessory and hardware known to man on the big work table in the center of the shop and began to sort through one piece at a time. Screws and nails of fifty different lengths and types, galvanized 10d finish nails, tapcons and GRKs, steel cut square nails, electrical staples, fence staples, airgun nail strips, shear bolts and anchors. We build little piles of each, discard the bent or stripped ones and then refill the containers and cans on the hardware shelf.

We sweep the floor, consolidate the stocks of fiberglass fence stakes in their racks, electrical items in one cabinet, plumbing in another. I came across a cookie tin filled with old hand forged iron nails that someone on this farm had fashioned into eye hooks a hundred year ago or more. I’d dug them out of the corner of an old foundation and thrown them together in the hopes of one day making a display. Since we were in the shop I cut a piece of rock maple and sanded it down, then glued the nail hooks in rows across the face of it. I did the same with a half dozen arrowheads and when the panels had dried I hung them on the front of the cabinet doors. We sharpened chisels and wire brushed and oiled anything that had a tough of rust.

I located a bucket of barn door hardware I salvaged from the fire, enough to hang the doors on the new hay barn once I wire brushed and painted them. There were old tools we’d discovered over the last few years in an old barrel, scythe blades, worn out ax heads, hay forks and ice cutting tools. I organized a shelf full of shop manuals and instruction booklets for the welder, the table saw and the sandblaster. We wiped down and coiled the hoses and extension cords and hung them back in place. The shovels and picks, rakes and hoes, pry bars and wrecking bars were all stowed back on their hooks and the garbage cans and their lids were washed and dried then placed back in their bins next to the canisters of dog chow and cat food.

The husbandry equipment, harnesses and feeding bottles, waters and feed bins were all cleaned out and organized in their own closet, tack hanging on the hooks. By late afternoon we’d done all that there was to do and the shop looked as organized and well ordered as it had ever been. As my son began to pack up some of his finds in the back of his truck the back end of the front had moved on, the sky a startling lavender color like you see in an N.C. Wyeth painting. I filled a small box with frozen sausages and ground beef and gave it to my son and he thanked me.

I told him that he could always count on food from us, could always count on us no matter what and we gave each other the kind of half hug that the men in our family are known to give each other and I stood in the dooryard with the dogs watching him drive away, his hand raised and waving until he disappeared around the bend.

There is an order in the world that finds itself with or without our involvement and it is the human condition to try and copy it, like an apprentice mimics the master or the child his parent. There is something profoundly comforting in a world where everything is in it’s place and something exciting when it’s not and we travel through our lives pulled by these opposing forces like the tides. There exists, I think, an immutable force that binds us to the rituals of creation and destruction, of creating hearth and home and then leaving it all behind.

Watching my oldest son prepare to leave is a perfect completion of the cycle that led me to set down our roots. We leave so that we can come back and we start all over again. I imagine that in the upcoming year as so many people try and make the choices that will best benefit them they will choose on extreme or the other, tear down or try and build back up. In the world where people raise their families most of these bigger issues will hardly be noticed as they prepare meals, tuck children in at night, make plans for when they leave. The roar of the daily weather in both nature and human terms is leveled by the longer movements of social and planetary climate and things will, no matter what, find order in the things we do.

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Francis Marion

HSF,

Great way to start my Sunday morning. Good son’s are God’s reward to fathers with patience and integrity.

If your son is in the Pacific North West and he wants to make a jaunt across the border for a few days just to see it he is welcome in our home. My family and I would be happy to house, feed and tour him around on the north side of the border for a few days.

Maggie
Maggie

Wow, HSF. Just Wow. I can’t imagine my letting my son drive off into the unknown adventure yours is embarking upon with the calm you appear to display. However, when the day arrives that mine is no longer “just visiting” from college and embarks upon his future as an independent man, I hope I have prepared him half as well as you have done.

Maggie
Maggie

Nice thought, Francis Marion. If your son would like to see the Elephant Rocks and hear some local folk tales about the Civil War Memorial at Pilot Knob, Missouri, let me know and we have a treehouse vacant most of the time. We will even turn the water heater back on for him while he is here.

Hope@ZeroKelvin
Hope@ZeroKelvin

I always try to find something snarky to snark about HSF’s posts but they are so beautiful and true, I am deafeated and must retreated like the defeated cur I am.

James the Wanderer

On a bright June day in 1981, wet-ink diploma in hand, I packed my 1976 Ford Maverick with all my worldly goods and headed off to first employment in Texas. It took two days to get there, the night spent sheltering in an empty house that my father built which had housed my grandparents until death and Alzheimer’s finally split them up, I the only occupant for the evening. Sometimes I wish I had taken the time to wander the country back then, before racial strife, irritable immigrants and above all cultural decay had made it what it is now; but finances would not allow, and I needed to earn money to get married in August. Such is the series of choices we call life, day after day of them.

You are far more organized than I am; sometimes I must look for an hour for a tool or provision, and I’ve only got about 1/6 acre! I envy you the discipline that keeps things where you leave them, as well; my two kids don’t have it either.

If your boy starts a blog, please let us know where to find it; if he writes anything like you, it will be quite the journal! Safe travels to him, and if he’s in upper Utah as some point he can have a meal or two when he wants it. Blessings!

ILuvCO2
ILuvCO2

Great essay HSF. My eldest son went off to college in August, so it hits home. We are very proud of his work ethic and maturity (that and he did not end up as a liberal). You have also made me feel quite guilty, as I love order and things in their right places. I think you have given me inspiration to go into my mess of a basement and clean and order everything. Wait, screw that. I am looking out the window on a picture perfect New England day, not even a chemtrail can be seen. I am going to grab my compass and head out into the woods. Some people think the woods are the epitome of disorder. I look at it as everything is exactly as it should be.

jm

Love to you and your family, HSF. On Friday, I used your “The Things We Raise” in my sixth-grade classroom as a beautiful example of descriptive writing. Thank you so much for sharing your gift and experiences. All the best to your son.

Suzanna
Suzanna

HSF,

a clean and well organized work shop is a magnificent thing.

Cheers! And a thoughtful and intelligent son, “launching”

is a satisfaction beyond most. Call or text Mom once a day?

That may be a bar too high. Make it 50/50 to start.

Suzanna

MuckAbout

Just another beautiful picture in the life of the HSF and his family.

I’m with James: If your son starts a blog, please let us know how to access it. If you want to do it privately, send the URL to Admin and he will forward it to those who want to follow your son on his odyssey. We’d appreciate it..

I joined the Navy after high school so my first odyssey turned out to be payed for. I was an ET and back in those days they were so short of people with my skill set, I spent all but 35 days of a full enlistment at sea and in foreign lands. Had to do my American odyssey at a slightly older age!

MA

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

Nice rainy day story, HSF. Godspeed to your son.

Chris
Chris

Love to read your posts! Thanks very much for sharing your gifts with us!

Unwound
Unwound

Hardscrabble says:

“There is something profoundly comforting in a world where everything is in its place and something exciting when it’s not and we travel through our lives pulled by these opposing forces like the tides.”

And

“The roar of the daily weather in both nature and human terms is leveled by the longer movements of social and planetary climate and things will, no matter what, find order in the things we do.”
_________________

It seems it is easier to just do what needs to be done as opposed to procrastinating, constantly thinking about it and continuously telling yourself: “I need to get to that”. Whether it’s cleaning up a cluttered shop, repairing a broken down snow machine, maintaining a vehicle, servicing a lawn mower, taking apart a chainsaw or field stripping a firearm; then cleaning , inspecting, lubricating, reassembling and adding the final touches, before putting everything back in its place. There is also a sense of immediate satisfaction when you get done, as well as later when you get busy and tell yourself: “I’m glad I did that when I did”.

I read this post a couple times today, Hardscrabble, and the closing paragraphs quite a few times. To me, reading your essays can be compared to staring at calm waters. Your perspectives add to my peace of mind and help to lessen the violent tempest that daily rages in my heart. Thanks for that…

IndenturedServant

Great story and best wishes to your son on his upcoming adventure. I did similar trips in the US and Europe and the experiences stick with me like they occurred yesterday.

When/if you son finds himself on the road between Seattle and Glacier NP, encourage him to consider a path that takes him past Dry Falls. It was once the largest waterfall on Earth at the end of the ice age and still would be except water no longer cascades over it’s massive precipice. If he gets into west central MT he can see the ancient shorelines of Glacial Lake Missoula that fed the falls high up on the mountainsides.

Central WA is rather desolate anyway and Dry Falls is a definite highlight on the most scenic path through central WA. Grand Coulee Dam is on that route and the road southwest from there follows Banks Lake the ancient Columbia River Channel. At the far end of Banks Lake is Dry Falls and the highway follows the ancient receding path of the falls down towards Soap Lake. It’s well worth the trip particularly if one has any interest in geology. Camping opportunities about in the area.

North Idaho has a couple stands of ancient cedars that stand twelve feet in diameter and serve as isolated pockets of what the forests of the PNW used to look like prior to greedy men destroying them. THe forests that replaced them aren’t even close approximations of what once existed here.

If he gets to Great Falls, MT, The Charles M Russell museum is not to be missed. https://www.cmrussell.org/

Anywho, if your son needs any assistance on his journey through the Inland Northwest, admin has my email and it would be my pleasure to assist him if needed.

Dry Falls
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Gryffyn
Gryffyn

Your son is embarking on a life altering journey. If anything, seeing as he is a very organized person, I would encourage him to allow for synchronicity and the unplanned to play a role in his travels. From personal experience on the road, great things often happen by accident.

IndenturedServant

Maggie said:
“Just Wow. I can’t imagine my letting my son drive off into the unknown adventure yours is embarking upon with the calm you appear to display.”

Really Maggie? I figured you and your husband, being of the nomadic military persuasion, would be encouraging your son to take a similar journey. Has the world really become that much more fucked up than it was in the early to mid eighties? That transition period between primary school and the onset of career life is the perfect time to undertake such a journey. I hope ‘Murica is still safe enough for such things. I know I never feel any danger in my infrequent travels around the PNW.

Unplugged
Unplugged

As one who had traveled 44 of the 50 states in the continental US, I believe Gryffyn @ 5:32 PM is offering sage advice. But Indentured Servant’s points above are also valid. Godspeed young man.

Unplugged
Unplugged

“And” are valid. Not “but”, I mean. It will be an amazing experience. I am envious. If only to be young again… 🙂

Francis Marion

IS – says

“I know I never feel any danger in my infrequent travels around the PNW.”

True – we spend a lot of time in Washington state (proximity). One of my favourite spots to take my family for the day is Whidbey Island. If he can make it there Fort Casey is an amazing spot to just sit and look at the sea with some of the best views of the Olympic’s and Puget/Straight of Juan de Fuca sound you’ll get anywhere in the region. It always settles my soul whenever I am there. A truly beautiful spot… he should see it if he can.

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IndenturedServant

Whidbey Island is fantastic. I particularly like fishing for pink salmon in Deception Pass State Park. The waters there are filled with starfish, octopus, jellyfish and are crystal clear. If you’re lucky you can see seals and killer whales herding salmon into pockets for an easy kill. The sea current moving though the pass is mind blowing too! You could spend a lifetime exploring the PNW alone and never see it all.

One more tip for HSF’s son is to visit the Mt. St. Helen’s National Monument. The overlook there stares straight into the throat of the volcano where the landslide unleashed the eruption that day in May. It’s called Johnston ridge now after David Johnston who was sitting on that ridge when he radioed his last words on Earth………”Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”……..before being vaporized.

David Johnston about 13 hours before his exit from this life:
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Count Zero
Count Zero

HSF: Your all-to-infrequent posts possess nostalgic urgings of memories past, of times in my own long life when I traveled along similar pathways as your own. There’s a tone and timbre to your beautifully descriptive prose that is comforting in its familiarity, along with a gentle instructiveness of how life ought to be lived in this frenetic time of social turmoil that we find ourselves caught up in at this moment of time.

Perhaps, Hardscrabble, that is why I and so many of your fellow readers feel such a warm glow when we see one of your essays appear here on this worthy blog. You are providing us with a template of how to Live Alone Together with a minimum of strife and friction. Thank you for bringing a bit of sanity into our otherwise wickedly insane and troubled world raging just outside of your barn door.

Gator
Gator

You really do have a steinbeck type quality to your writing, sometimes it really comes out, sometimes, not. But it really shines in this post. I will say this, it is really hard to picture someone who writes like this doing stand-up.

Maggie
Maggie

@Indentured Servant… I may be reading too much doom and gloom these days, but i am also seeing some really disturbing shit around me and it makes me want to keep my son off the playground until the nasty boys leave the area. Sigh.

My young cousin has a 2 year old child and she lives in her husband’s parents (my paternal uncle and aunt) home before my uncle passed of Parkinson’s disease some twenty years ago. She is handgun trained and carries concealed always, but her husband is a well driller and is often gone for long periods of time. That is well known and she has been burglarized both day and night by someone who seems to WANT her to know he’s been there. She awoke to find a trail of candy wrappers across the kitchen floor out the back door one day last week. We both suspect it is my nephew, out of prison for child molestation for two years now and up for trial for beating a young woman with a ball bat several months ago. The plea bargaining starts this Thursday, with his “not guilty” plea withdrawn when the case actually was brought to trial last week. Since his release, he has stolen and pawned many items from my father’s collection (I HAVE ZERO CONTROL OF THAT) while my mother has been hospitalized. The pawn shop owner calls me when he walks in to tell me what he is selling “today.”

My extended family (beyond Nick and my son) is rather tragic because of this 31 year old creature. He is a lifetime criminal, having been through the revolving door of juvenile halls until finally caught raping a 3 year old child and barely surviving to be arrested and pleaing guilty to child molestation to avoid a harsher sentence. He has absolutely no conscience at all. He killed small chicks and giggled when he was small and wet the bed every night of his childhood. He is a classic Sociopath and even though he lives 60 miles distant, I think I see his old beat-up truck someone gave him to help him find a job (supposedly) as he drives by our remote plot of land once or twice a month. Should he go back to jail this Thursday, the world will feel a lot safer for myself and my son.

You see, my son was one of the first he molested and when my son told me, I made sure every person in my family with children knew about it. I told his father that if he didn’t get him help, he would end up in prison. His father said my five year old made it up. When he was found guilty four years later and sent to prison, no one told me because I would have traveled 500 miles to testify. At that point, the relationship between myself and my brother ended. I think my brother blames me or my son. I don’t give a shit. I believe the SOB stalks my cousin now because she and I are close. I believe that he is the most dangerous person in the world and I only hope that one day he gets up the nerve to step across my property line. The county sheriff is expecting me to call with the news that Nick or I had to shoot him.

So, yeah… Nick and I aren’t really afraid of traveling or meeting up with dangerous things. But this predator has made my skin crawl for two years since he got out of prison. While I have no doubt my son could beat the crap out of him now were he to meet him face to face, I never want him near my son again.

On a lighter note:

My stepson posted this ridiculous message on FB today and I got him good!

The message was one of those stick figure drawings with this saying “Guess who is over thirty but still sexy as FUCK?”

I replied “Guess whose stepmom is gonna wash your dirty mouth out with soap?”

About six young ladies he flirts with a lot on the social media scene spent the next hour making fun of him. Vince has been through some shit too, with his lesbian mother turning his world into a hell where freaks visited every day, but he took it well. He said “Okay, Stepmom… you caught me.”

IndenturedServant

Maggie, I don’t think I could handle the stress of having kids. I tend to worry about those that I’m close to and a wife is plenty to fill my quota of worry. Not that my (former USAF) wife needs me to worry about her, she’s tough and smart but worry is not something I seem capable of turning off. I understand your concern. If someone had molested any child of mine I’d be sitting in prison for murder with extreme prejudice if I had any access to the offender.

maggie's phone
maggie's phone

When it happened and Nick kept him outside my parents’ home (where it happened) Until the father came to get him, I was actually worried Nick would kill him. Now that gotten out of prison and is making s many lives live in fear, I wish Nick had taken that ball bat he threatened Nick with and instead of simply holding him down he should have ended his reign of terror. I believe he will be sent back to prison Thursday. He is a felon and the charge is “assault with lethal weapon” so he should get 7 to 10 according to code.

maggie's phone
maggie's phone

Justice has a way of eluding the criminal court system. This trial was delayed for 90 days because the arresting policemen saw marijuana in the young woman’s house so after they took him to jail, they came back with a warrant a d arrested her.while the POS got bailed out, she had to spend 3 months for possession. Justice!

Rise Up

AFC wins super bowl. In 7 of the last 8 super bowls prior to a presidential election, if the AFC wins, a Republican candidate wins the White House, if the NFC wins, a Democrat is elected. This phenomenon began in 1980. The only time it failed was in 2000, and that was the Gore/Bush election that was decided by the Supreme Court, which many people claimed Gore actually won the majority of the popular vote.

Let’s see what happens in November to validate this trend.

Rise Up

Best wishes for your son’s journey, HSF. I’m sure he will do fine with a loving and supporting father and family as yours appears to be.

My only child is in his 3rd year away from home (but only 2 hours drive) at college, but in a few years when I retire, the miles between he and my wife and I may be quite distant. It’s a thin line between wanting to be physically close but realizing at some point your offspring goes their own way.

I lived 5 years in Oregon and the PNW is indeed a scenic area.

Gator
Gator

Serious question for all you guys, both HSF and the ones who live out there in the NW. I need a good, rugged pair of rain boots. Which is better, muck’s or the honeywell xtratuff? those are the two i keep hearing about.

hardscrabble farmer

I wear boots hard, until they fall apart. Muck boots take a serious amount of abuse for chores/wet/snow conditions, Red Wing Logger boots for serious work.

IndenturedServant

Whites Pacs will keep your feet dry but they are super insulated for cold weather too so may not be appropriate for warmer conditions.

If your main goal is keeping your feet dry and protection is not an issue then knee high rubber boots are excellent but keep a spare pare on hand. Firemans boots have steel toes and are much more rugged.

Francis Marion

Gator,

I don’t own rain boots. Rain boots are good for kids here or if you work on a farm but for the most part this country is made out of rock. Mud is not a huge concern (unless you are farming in the valley) so for being outside I run a pair of light hikers for daily wear or when in the mountains a Gortex lined set of leather mountain boots. I own Meindl’s for this purpose. Anything not made of leather will not survive a season in the mountains. The Gortex will keep your feet dry.

starfcker
starfcker

HSF, what sort of chainsaw armor do you use? I just looked it up, didn’t know it existed. I try to keep chainsaws out of my world for liability reasons, but we’re working on 20 acres left unattended for 3 or 4 years. So they would come in handy. Do you just use the pants? The whole suit? Gloves? Helmet? Very interesting concept.

hardscrabble farmer

We wear old style steel logging helmets, Stihl chaps (make sure they’re the kind with Avertic Pro+ liners- a saw will not cut through if you lay it on the leg running.

There are really good arm gloves available out there that cover up to the elbow, but we generally use shorter leather gloves like the kind we use for welding, a little more flexible.

Of course good eye and hearing protection are essential too.

starfcker
starfcker

Thank you. I’m all over this. That stuff looks amazing. I have no idea why I’ve been unaware it existed.

KaD
KaD

You must think better, behave better and live better than the rest. You must live a life anchored by strong principles and you must stand firm in defending those principles. You will not make excuses or try to explain them, you will simply live by them and push back anyone who tries to take these principles away from you. For to lose them is to lose your honor, and in the world we live in today, where honor is surrendered in order to maintain a job or to board an airplane, you will come to realize that the respect of men is earned by those who stand their ground for the things they believe in.

Honor is not easily restored once lost and it is not something that can be taken away – it can only be surrendered by you. The road to restoring honor is long and hard and requires the act of many noble deeds before you can get that simple nod of approval, that subtle gesture of acceptance that men exchange, that communicates the respect of men of honor.

http://www.thisblogisdangerous.com/old-fashioned-knights-in-the-modern-world/

Francis Marion

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