Fences and Wheelbarrows

Saturday certainly was another day of contrasts, as typifies Highlands weather in April.  I was awakened at 5:00 a.m. by the sound of rain and a faint rumble of thunder, but by the time I went downstairs two hours later it had nearly stopped.   Blue sky was breaking through above the ridge to the east, but dark clouds still hovered to the west.  Although temperatures were in the upper 40s, it felt a little chilly, so when I drove to Town to go running I wore a warmer shirt than usual.  And I was glad I did, because when I arrived the wind was blowing hard out of the west.  Will winter ever be over? I thought.

There were no cars parked at Founders Park, so I ran to the end of Fifth Street and back again, about a mile; still no cars or signs of any other runners.  I turned down Main Street and began what would be a six-mile run all by myself.  I couldn't help marveling as I passed the Presbyterian Church at how quickly we have all become adjusted to this singular sight on a Saturday morning of only five or six cars parked along the entire length of Main Street, Old Edwards Inn and Highlands Inn dark and empty and silent, and nobody at all out sitting on the famous Loafers Bench or walking on the sidewalks.  I had the entire street to myself and there was no need to watch for a car backing out in front of me as I ran, but it was an eerie feeling, like one of those old science fiction movies in which the world has ended and there are only a handful of lonely survivors.

Gusts of wind kept rising and falling, and just as it had been this morning on our deck, the sky was a quickly changing contrast of dark, dangerous-looking clouds and sudden sunshine breaking through.  It was one of those runs when I would ask myself from time to time, Why am I doing this?  But then I would turn a corner, the wind would die down and the sun would beam brightly, and I would roll up my sleeves from being dressed too warmly.  Eventually I did see some other runners, all of them going in the opposite direction and at different times - a kind of accidental "social distancing" - Brian and his daughter, and then Debbie and Tom, and finally Martha, who I had thought might have stayed home because the cold wind aggravates her asthma.  "It's cold out here!" she said.  And she was right.  It was a harder run than either of us had expected.

I saw Fred in his car, too, just as I was finishing up my six miles; he slowed and rolled down his window.  "I got a late start," he said.  I asked him if he had read the local newspaper yet this week, and he shook his head.  "Read the column by Bud Katz," I told him.  In his weekly column, Bud had written about Louise Penny's fictional detective Inspector Gamache, a series that Fred had recommended to me and I had begun reading.  In a part than I had remarked at the time, Gamache had told a younger detective, "There are four things that lead to wisdom," and then he had counted off four brief sentences on his fingers:  "I don't know.  I need help.  I'm sorry.  I was wrong."  Fred (who is a philosophical man) agreed that these would be good things for us all to learn to say in our lives.

As I was driving away from the Park, Martha came into view, and I stopped at the intersection of Fifth and Main.  "That was a tough one!" I said.  "We deserve a steak!"  And on the way home I stopped at Rhodes Superette, where behind the meat counter Davis cut me two six-ounce filets.  I can't remember when we last had steak, but it was probably last year after a hard run.  I also bought a tomato pie, the first of the season, baked by Kitty and a real treat.

Have I mentioned in the pages of this blog that we have been eating well?  For the third week in a row, we picked up a box of fresh fruit and vegetables from August Produce (see previous posts) on Friday, and I guess the same idea had occurred to Martha and I - what would go better with fresh corn on the cob and a baked potato than a steak?  Martha has had the time and the inclination to get out her recipe books and it has become a challenge for her (and a welcome reward for me) to find new and interesting ways to use the bounty that each week's box of produce contains.

After a lunch of BLT's (courtesy of the fresh tomatoes from our cornucopia), we both continued the separate projects we have been working on in our yard.  The wind had died down and the sun was brightly shining, a perfect day for outdoor work.  Martha continued pruning brush and raking the leaves in that part of our property above the driveway that we have long neglected.  Her weapons in this battle consisted of rake, pruning shears, and wheelbarrow.

My own project was erection of the steel handrail I mentioned in the previous post.  Because of the fixed length of each section of handrail - 59 inches - and the necessity of locating the short section at the top of the stone stairs I had constructed when I built this wall 20 or 25 years ago, there was only one possible place to position the crucial first post.

My own weapons in the battle were a post-hole digger, which is a cruel implement to wield when it strikes a rock or a root, and eventually a long crowbar, a stone-mason's hammer, the heaviest maul I could find, and eventually a chainsaw, because of course there were both rocks and roots in the exact place where the post had to be set.  The second hole provided no better.  I have a lot of work to look forward to!

It was a long afternoon of hard manual work before we knocked off for the day, but we both agreed that while we were tired and our muscles were sore, it was that healthy, rewarding kind of fatigue that comes from work done well.  The late afternoon sky was cloudless and the sun was warm as we set the table on our deck for dinner, and - Oh thanks be to August Produce and Rhodes Superette! - feasted on steak, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes.