Firkroy Has an Aching Back!

Yes, it's nice to receive something free, but does it really have to hurt so much?

My wife is in the other room on the phone when I hear “We got it! Yaaa Hooo!” We were the first ones to respond to a message that was put out to the parents of my son's social group for autistic kids. Long story short, the organization owned the large wooden play structure, but it had been used by a family who lived on top of a steep hill behind an automated gate. I thought it was a strange arrangement but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I called the woman that lived in the house on the hill, and after a brief conversation she told me that she would text me the phone number of her nanny, so I could make arrangements with her to get in the gate. She is a doctor, and texting is her preferred way of communicating.

Now I may be Mr. Technology, but I really don't like texting, and being constantly tethered to something like a smart phone is not my idea of a good time. I had a Crackberry when I was on the road selling processors and diodes to most of the state, and it made sense for me to be able to see my email on the road, or to be able to find directions to a factory. But most people don't really need these things, and I'm constantly getting stuck behind some jackass staring at his wiener poking away at his gizmo as the light turns green.

A well placed “HONK!” usually gets him rolling, but I really think smart phones are the worst things that have happened to traffic in recent history. I use a $10 Virgin mobile phone that can painfully spit out a text if I really have to, but it's small and makes clear calls.

For two days I wait for the text message from the lady on the hill that never came. Finally I decide to use my cheap ass phone to send her a text message. “7777” gets me an S, “666” an O, this is just painful. I finally get the message out, and she finally responds back to me with the phone number of her nanny.

I contact the nanny, then go out to the house on the agreed upon date. The nanny let's me in the gate after a buzz at the intercom, and I maneuver down a narrow winding driveway with a drop off on one side, and stuff to run into on the other.

“Backing into this place with a trailer is going to be a nightmare” I think to myself.

But it's what has to be done, and “No guts, No glory” has always been my motto. The play structure was old, a little rotten where it had touched the ground, but I decide I could just make it a few inches shorter and it will be OK, so I decide it's worth the effort. I then made arrangements to come back the next Monday to start work.

Monday rolls around, and I drive out with the my old trailer that's made from half a Toyota pickup in tow. I have to drive into the wrong lane in order to back the trailer into the driveway entrance, but I manage to do it without getting killed. I get out of the car and hit the intercom buzzer. Then I wait, and wait, and wait. I then hit the buzzer again, and wait. Finally a man's voice says “yeah.”

“Hello” I say cheerfully, “I'm here to start taking away the play structure.”

“Oh, OK” the voice says as the gate starts to swing open. Backing my Blazer down that driveway was a real nightmare, with the drop off, the turns, and shrubs in pots on the other side, I really had to put my skills to the test. The man of the house was standing by the garage, a tall man that looked as if he had spent some quality time at the gym pumping iron. He watched me back up with a little concern, but once I stopped, he introduced himself, we shook hands, and he headed back into the house.

I had hoped that Mr. “Arnold wanna be” might have helped me with the dismantling of the kid castle, but it wasn't in the cards. I got to work wrenching off nuts, and loading seventy pound wooden chunks into the trailer. After a few hours I was sweaty, dirty, and experiencing new aches and pains, but I had managed to load the trailer, and made arrangements to return the next day.

I started driving down the hill, and across town looking like Jethro Bodine; a soak in a cement pond sounds good right about now. Everything was strapped down with bungees, and I'm sure I violated some sort of laws by having things stick out all over the place, but luckily no officers of the law were interested today.

The next day I once again arrive at the house on the hill. I back into the driveway entrance out of traffic, and hit the buzzer. I wait, and wait, and wait, buzz again, and wait... no answer. I resort to (yuck) texting the doctor again, “222” for C, “33” for E. It just sucked texting this lady. No reply, so I just sat there.

About ten minutes later a different lady arrives, this time it's the maid. She asked how long I had been waiting, and I pleasantly told her about ten minutes, and it was no big deal. She lets me in, and I slowly back the trailer down the trail of death once again.

It had been raining the night before so this time it was muddy around the play structure. When I got a chunk detached, I would make my way up the slipper wet grass and run it through the garage to the trailer. But today it seemed like the maid was adding obstacles. There were two open buckets of what appeared to be paint thinner that I had to tip toe around, bicycles that hadn't been ridden very much, and all sorts of things that could get bumped and fall down.

I worked for hours, and was starting to imagine driving away from this house of pain, and never coming back. A slim smile was coming over my face when with about fifteen minutes worth of work left, the sprinkler system came on.

“What the hell, you've got to be shitting me.” I say to my self.

I'm muddy, sore, skinned up, this was just icing on the cake. Do you think they could have at least turned off the (insert favorite profanity) sprinklers while I was out there? I guess not.

Well, I've only got to do a few trips through the sprinklers, so I trudge through getting a few nice cold showers lugging up the last pieces; at least some of the mud got washed off. With my mission accomplished I strap down my chunks, and do another Jethro back home with my final load.

I get a text from the doctor at about 7PM saying “she thought you were coming at 10”

I wasn't sure who she was, but I poked at my $10 phone, and thanked her.

Sometimes the things that you have to do are hard, but the satisfaction of knowing my kids will get years of enjoyment from this play structure (after I fix it, and put it back together) was well worth getting hit with the lawn sprinklers, and trudging through mud.

Yesterday we headed out to a farm, and I lugged two fifty pound pumpkins into the minivan for my kids, I guess I must really love the little stinkers. And who knows if I keep lifting heavy crap maybe I too will start looking like Arnold.

The Armenian Blackberry… the Devil’s Fruit in my backyard.

Also known as the Himalayan blackberry this luscious black fruit is tempting, and hard to resist. But it’s also a demonic weed bent on world domination!

You can see them everywhere in western Oregon, large inviting brambles that in the late summer display perfectly sculpted berries. They are sweet, delicious, and a perfect fruit to use in a milkshake. They’re made into pies, muffins, jams, and they can even make oatmeal taste good! But at what price do we pay for this succulent gift?

If blackberry brambles could speak you would hear them whispering to you “Come over here, I have yummy berries, I would never poke you.”

“Lying Succubus!” I would yell back at them. I keep forgetting plants can’t hear me, or can they?

The Oregon department of Agriculture calls the Armenian Blackberry “the most widespread and economically disruptive of all the noxious weeds in western Oregon. “ Did they say weeds? Yes they did. This noxious weed will take over the earth eventually, growing more than 20 feet per year with deadly spikes. Well, they would be deadly if you got poked enough times.

I’ve been battling the heinous weed in my yard for years; they have been an uninvited guest since they drew first blood in 1997. Anyone who lives in Oregon knows that when you try and remove the despicable weed the damned things fights back! Scratching, poking, and disfiguring your whole body until you look like you were fighting naked with a pack of feral cats. The welts get red, itch, and ooze; you’re in such misery you may as well just get drunk. You could battle them in suit of armor to keep from getting poked, but I think you would still be bleeding.

I’ve tried all kinds of creative torture on the spiky pests. I’ve used a weed whacker with a metal blade, dug them up with shovels, pulled them out with Kevlar gloves, and even let chickens peck them to death. They still keep coming back no matter what I do. The only consolation is that the chicken pecking is very satisfying. “Die Weed Die!” peck peck peck. I guess my next step is to rent goats.

I blame birds for spreading this spawn of Hades everywhere for thousands of square miles. The birds with their strange ever focusing eyes peck, eat, and drop millions of purple gifts from the sky. The seeds in those delightful bird bombs sprout, and like a malignant cancer start spreading their disease across the landscape. The berries must actually be very dark purple, but I guess calling them blackberry makes more sense than calling them really very purple berries.

After cutting, pulling, and piling the long spiky pests I once lit a match to the pile. Flames shot 30 feet into the air, and I thought for sure the fire department was going to get called, or Smokey the Bear would show up with his shovel and give me a lecture about starting fires.

But instead I heard a voice from two houses down that yelled “Watcha burnin over there?”

“Just some blackberries” I yelled back.

The voice then replied “can you burn mine too?”

There’s something special about burning blackberry brambles that brings neighbors closer together. When the flames are tall and the smoke is thick I swear I can here neighbors chanting “Burn, Burn, Burn you Bastards Burn!” It’s rather unsettling actually.

Usually I haul them away to be turned into compost. I’m charged $2.50 a truck load to have them taken off my bleeding hands. When transporting them I don’t have to tie the load down, they won’t blow out of the truck, like Velcro the thousands of thorns keep them entwined together in one dangerous mass. After dumping off the load of spikiness, they are cooked down by composting, and then resold to me later for $22 a truck load for enriching my tomato beds. It just doesn’t seem fair.

One day I may temporarily evict the weeds from my yard. I have dreamy thoughts of a day when I can skip through the grass without a bloody foot. But until then, I’ll just keep eating them in jam and peanut butter sandwiches, while devising new ways to kill them.