"Do not let a flattering woman coax and wheedle you and deceive you; she is after your barn."
As perhaps the least surprising observation of the week, I note that we didn't really think through this whole classic truck thing.
I was warned by a friend before we plunked down the money on a 62-year-old pickup that one can't just leave such a relic out in the elements. The fragile old girl will require an enclosed, climate controlled space, just like the airplane.
But no such space currently exists at Wyldswood. It was only through sheer luck or good fortune or divine intervention, depending on your theology, that George was able to create a little space on his calendar to return to the place he helped build, and solve our garage problem.
As I wrote a few days ago, our barn will need to be fully enclosed anyway to provide adequate floor space for 150 wedding revelers. George set to work last week pouring slab and getting ready to enclose the east bay of the barn as the truck's new home, along with his buddy Jason from Shady Grove, a tattooed and amazingly well-spoken young military veteran (don't be off-put by the "infidel" tattoo on his forearm--he really is a decent guy, as near as I can tell).
That's "Splinters" in the background, the former tool shed George turned into maybe the coolest guest cottage ever. Another story for another day. Next to Splinters stands the greenhouse Peg keeps threatening to transform into some sort of meditation room. Anyone who's spent any time inside in July or August would tell you that "meditation sauna" would be a more descriptive moniker.
Speaking of monikers, it occurs to me that we really do need to come up with some endearing name for the new truck. Just calling it "truck" seems inadequately gimmicky for a wedding destination. I'll ponder on that a little.
That bay George is enclosing wasn't empty when he started work. We'd stored building supplies--mostly pavers and wooden pallets, from when P went through her pallet phase during the pandemic and had visions of building planters and even a bar using surplus pallets she'd pilfered from the parking lots of local businesses around Perry. Then she read how that wood is treated, and decided it wasn't worth the toxic exposure.
We also had a giant fertilizer spreader for dragging behind a tractor, a broken deer feeder, and of course the quarter-century old Lexus we've been holding for Issac for as long as I've been around, and then some. And once George gets around to enclosing the west open bay, the tractors, gator, and zero turn mower will need a new home.
Which necessitated a new pole barn. To our amazement, George was able to arrange for the kit to arrive in one week flat. The delivery truck dumped it in the southwest pasture yesterday. So much for the "supply chain issues" that have been the bane of this decade.
That's Peg's spiffy new John Deere from last year in the background. She trusts George to drive it. I've only sat in it once. Draw your own conclusions regarding who stands where in the Peg Pantheon.
George needed the tractor yesterday to do a little site work before assembling the new barn.
That's our chicken house in the background on the left, now decrepit and in need of repair after the sad day two year ago when a cow pushed the door open while we were away and our beloved chickens were lost to a predator, likely a coyote. I still tear up at the thought.
Behind it further left is the fish house, where I take my coffee in the mornings while throwing fish food to the bream and the lone surviving catfish who's been out there since Sam dug the pond all those years ago. And you can just barely make out the island Peg refuses to let me call "Snake Island" because, although accurate, the name gives her the creeps. Besides, now we have to worry about market appeal. Who wants their bridal shots taken on "Snake Island"?
There on the right stands our debris pile, now a little smaller after we burned it down a bit last year. We have two or three of these masses of branches, campaign signs used for target practice (let the reader understand), and hay bale wrappers stacked around the property, and need to finish burning or burying them before guests start showing up. We've been staring at the damned things for a couple years, so maybe this whole wedding venue venture will finally spur us to do something about these eyesores.
George texted me that the new tractor was missing bushings. Did I have some spares tucked away in the barn?
Oh George, you've overestimated me. What's a bushing? I remember hearing the term nearly thirty years ago when I drove a Jaguar roadster that, I was told, had real rubber bushings while the rest of the world had long ago transitioned to synthetics. This required an expensive replacement of dry rotted steering bushings and a day away from work over in Fort Walton Beach at the Jag mechanic while he did the job. All I could tell you then was that a bushing was a rubber thingie that took up the play in the steering rod. Or is it "rods"? Like I said, I'm not the most knowledgeable consumer of things mechanical.
In any event, George rode over to Tractor Supply and bought some bushings, and work continues apace on creating a new home for the farm equipment. Exciting times.
Do we also need to name the tractors? Seems cheesy, but we're in the entertainment business now.
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