Flotsam & Jetsam | That’s Hot

— a semi-regular humor column by Maurice Austin —

Recently I had to sweat a few joints under the rental unit, and since I’m clumsy and always end up dripping hot solder all over the place, I raked up a bunch of dead madrona leaves, which are nice and light and dry by this third week in August, and spread them underneath the work area, to catch the dripping solder, which went well, but still I had to hold the propane torch at sort of a clumsy angle, because the copper tubing runs right up next to the spot I store my firecrackers, and some of those packages are coming apart, and the weave of the wicks unwinding, but at least the flame quickly cleared the area of cobwebs, saving me the effort of first brushing it clean, which helped.

It was nice and cool under the house, certainly more tolerable than my next chore, which involved bucking up a couple of logs, and since the saw was running like junk, I removed the spark arrester, and that helped, but the logs were big, and the chain kept binding, and of course I ran it right into some rocks several times, sending sparks flowering out among the pine needles and papery madrona bark piled up there, which even started smoldering at one point, but I dribbled a little fuel-oil mix on it and it went out.

Having worked up a sweat, I hopped in the car and headed to the market for some hot coffee, but as luck would have it, found I had a flat tire, so I swapped the wheel with a spare, which is actually a studded snow tire, makes some interesting noises, particularly along those sharp outside corners. Alas, coming around the last sharp bend on North Beach Road, a deer jumped into the road, and I swerved, but then noticed a painted rock sitting right on the fog line, and swerved for it, too, immediately noticing that someone had painted “Love” right there, too, and the paint was still wet, so I swerved again, and almost didn’t notice the also-wet paint of the word “Locate” painted there, too, swerving all over by then, and that studded snow tire showering sparks into the dry grass, particularly on that spot where somebody had dropped a full box of wooden kitchen matches, right next to that pile of split cedar shingles. I least I think the sparks were from the spare—they might have actually come from the piece of chain dangling from my tow hitch.

Besides a couple cups of coffee, I picked up some chicken thighs for the BBQ, and got them marinating while I scraped off the grill, which was still warm from the night before. I scraped out the briquettes, but the ash-bucket was full, so I tossed the embers on the pine needles and madrona bark and fuel-oil mix, and went for some fresh charcoal and lighter fluid, and soon had a nice big flame burning off the grease of last night’s roast, spattering it around the yard. Once the BBQ was loaded, I thought I’d get the lawn mowed, but the grass was so short I kept scraping the blade over rocks, which was annoying, and loud, and some children passing by complained, so I gave them each a book of matches, and told them to go play in the woods, and that helped.

It’s been quite a challenge to keep the grass from growing up alongside the edges of the driveway, but today was the day I’d put a neat, clean line there once and for all, and none of that spray-bottle tediousness, sheesh. I already had the coil of soaker hose ready to go, and strung it alongside the drive, and hooked it up to pump, which was plumbed to a 285-gallon fuel storage tank full of unleaded gasoline, and let ‘er rip, while I fired up the propane weed burner torch and picked off the strays, which helped.

After tidying up the edges, I spread gravel mixed with flint along the drive, and ran the mower over it several times to smooth it out, the blades pinging and popping. Finally, after putting away the mower and coiling the soaker hose next to the BBQ, I flipped the thighs, which weren’t quite burnt enough yet, but won’t be long now, so that helps.

While stowing the pump, I noticed a case of road flares that I’d forgotten about, and wondered if they worked anymore, so I struck one off and tossed it in the grass, and it flared away there like flares are apt to do, though in the Forest Service we always called them fusees instead of flares, but then we were using them to set backburns, not to signal traffic hazards. Anyway looked like that box would be fine, and while putting it back found the drip-torch I’d lost years ago, so topped it off and lit it and tried to dribble a few lines in the brush, but it must’ve been clogged, since very little flame came out, and didn’t hardly catch. Oh well. I tried.

I took the thighs off the grill, since most of the fat had been reduced to char, and set down with a cup of coffee and the daily news, which was full of the flooding in Louisiana, complete devastation in Baton Rouge, houses floating off their foundations in Livingston, such a tragedy, such suffering, and the fires in California, of course, such extremes of the natural environment, dry as tinder here, nine feet underwater there, gets a guy thinking.

Maybe I should buy flood insurance. That might help.

Your mileage may vary….