Working With Uncle Leon

Working with Uncle Leon

Strayo, as we called Uncle Leon, was a regular Mr. Mcgoo, short, stubby, with a round little face and piercing beady eyes that flashed from beneath thick, bushy eyebrows.  He never really smiled and his grim demeanour seemed to demand that unyielding authority and control which he never quite achieved.  Oh, it wasn’t that he was not a respectable man.  He was honest, hard-working, decent; a real community-minded farmer who did everything right and whose code of ethics was unquestionable.  But how do you take seriously a less than five foot man in baggy overalls, who shuffles along noisily like a cat under a paper bag?  The overalls were properly shortened about ten inches on the pant legs and ten inches at the shoulders but with his head down on that too short neck, he still looked too comical to be given earnest attention. 

He had a bland outlook on life and his pessimistic attitude simply did not endorse decisive or positive action because his perpetually dour countenance affected that “cry wolf” reaction from those whom it was meant to impress.  He wasn’t a pathetic man, nor was he an apathetic one.  If you looked beyond the crusty façade and the hapless exterior, you would actually see a likable, kind and interesting fellow.  His genial personality and his sense of humour were simply masked by his gruff deportment. 

Uncle Leon paid no attention to inconsequential matters; they were not worthy of his time or his effort.  I vividly recall a visit to their home one time when his wife surreptitiously informed me that she had hung two new pictures and put up new wallpaper in the kitchen a whole month ago and he had never even noticed them yet.  She thought she had really put one over on him, I guess.  (Money was scarce those days, wall paper and pictures were a luxury she felt guilty about splurging on, but she had sneaked them in anyway.)  The fact that he hadn’t detected her indiscretion made her feel vindicated and somewhat triumphant, I suspect, but to Uncle Leon, such things were beyond his realm of worthwhile vigilance.

Uncle Leon lived two miles from our place.  He owned a quarter of land most of which was cleared of bush.  It was good grain land but Uncle Leon was old and did not have the equipment to farm it anymore so we rented it from him on a share basis.  He was my father-in-law’s brother and during harvest periods, Uncle Leon and I often got paired off during harvest season.  (This was a process of cutting the grain with a binder that tied it into sheaves before the final process of being thrashed by a thrashing machine that separated the grain from the straw.)  My job was driving the tractor while Uncle Leon sat on the binder, operating the levers that raised or lowered the cutting table, the grain fells, and the foot pedals that operated the sheave carrier.  His seat was perched high on a pedestal but had no safety or back supports other than those control levers located at arms length in front of him.

Our own land was rocky and although we picked rocks each spring after seeding, there were still some that would somehow surface by “bindering” time.  I always tried to be extra vigilant for these rocks because they could cause major equipment breakdowns and costly repairs as well as be a serious safety hazard to the person on the binder.  Occasionally, however, one would be hidden by grain and I would miss it.  If the central binder wheel hit the rock, it caused the binder to suddenly lurch into the air and then come back down to earth hitting it hard just as suddenly.  If Uncle Leon wasn’t on his guard, he could get thrown off his precarious perch.  I was aware of how hazardous this was but, thankfully, those lurches never amounted to more than a source of some of my most amusing memories of Uncle Leon.  I guess we were lucky that our experiences were just funny ones and never tragic ones.

I can still picture one particular instance when I hit a rock.  I felt the tractor jerk and as my foot instinctively hit the brake pedal as I turned in alarm to check on Uncle Leon.  My anxiety melted into relief and then to mirth when I realized he was safe but the scene was just hysterical.  The lurch had thrown Uncle high into the air and he was just coming down for a landing into his seat.  With his hands and legs spread out and his head and body leaning forward, he looked like an eagle swooping in for a kill.  The expression on his face was priceless, registering total shock, astonishment and alarm, all of it mixed with unmasked indignation.

Suppressing almost uncontrollable laughter, I immediately stopped the tractor and inquired if he was alright.  Uncle Leon glared at me with his usual exasperation and let forth a barrage of Ukrainian curses that would make the devil cringe, berating his brother for choosing such stony land to farm on. 

“Him and his damned farms.  When I got on this binder this morning, my back hurt, my feet hurt and my neck hurt.  Now, I don’t have any feelings left, good, bad or otherwise!” he finished in seething disgust.  (In Ukrainian it was absolutely hilarious.) 

I said nothing.  I didn’t trust myself to speak for fear of really getting him mad if he heard the amusement in my voice but recalling that scene still sends me into irrepressible fits of laughter.

There was also another experience with Uncle Leon that is utterly unforgettable.  I don’t know when it started or if I was always like that, but I could not feel minor jolts of electrical current like one from an electric fence used for cattle.  I found this out when I was first married and I went to bring the milk cows home for the evening milking. 

We had a few acres of lowland with a creek running through it that was not suitable for grain farming so we enclosed it with an electric fence and pastured our three milk cows there.  Electric fence gives cattle an electric jolt if they they try to cross it so just a single strand of wire will provide a secure enclosure because after on such jolt cattle will never come near the fence again.  However electric fence  loses its kick if it is grounded by any stick, tree branch, plant, etc. so it must be checked regularly for effectiveness.  As I left for the pasture, my husband reminded me to “check the fence”.  Novice that I was, I asked him how to do it.

“Get a blade of grass,” he explained patiently.  “Touch the wire with the blade of grass and you’ll feel a tingle in your finger.  That’s how you know the current is in the wire.”

I’d seen people get a jolt from touching electrical wires.  They jumped hard, and I didn’t want that kind of a jolt, but my husband assured me it would be a very harmless “little” tingle, so I agreed and left for the pasture.  I rounded up the cows, got them through the gate and onto the road, then went to check the fence.  I did the blade of grass routine but felt no tingle.  Gingerly, I touched the wire with my finger.  Still nothing.  I grasped the wire with my hand, closed my fist tightly over it but felt absolutely nothing.  So I followed the cows home and told my husband that there was no current in the fence. 

My husband immediately left for the pasture, walked all the way around the perimeter of it but found no grounders.  Grabbing the wire to check the current himself he took a jolt that sent his whole body reeling.  Needless to say, he was quite irate that I would deliberately play such a senseless joke on him and he told me so in no uncertain terms. Innocent as I knew I was, I was hurt and flabbergasted.  I could not understand how such a thing could have happened.  The following evening the same scenario played itself out but he pointedly warned me about not wasting his precious time with silly jokes.

Smarting from his distrust, I went to the pasture, got the cows on the road and followed the same procedure about checking the wire.  Again, I felt nothing.  I was totally confused but I was also suspicious now.  I had questioned myself about the night before, but this time I knew I had followed the procedure properly.  Why did I not feel anything?  Not wanting to go home to another admonition, I looked for another way to check that current.  “Bruiny” the dog, waited patiently beside me.  I got an idea.  Lifting the unsuspecting dog, I walked him to the fence and touched his nose to the wire.  That poor animal didn’t know what hit him.  With a violent jerk and a piercing yelp, that dog was out of my arms and racing madly towards home, howling all the way.

“Okay there is current,” I thought triumphantly.  I felt terrible about Bruiny.  He was still yelping half a mile down the road but at least I felt exonerated.  I went home and told my husband about my discovery.  He didn’t believe me and we drove back to the pasture where I had to grab the wire and hold it for him so he would believe me.  Suffice it to say he never asked me to check for the current again.  And it took poor Bruiny weeks to start trusting me again.

Anyway, to get back to Uncle Leon. We were harvesting on the home quarter near the pasture and I needed to go to the bathroom.  Stopping the tractor, I got off and headed for the bush in the pasture.  I had to cross the electric fence and I just held the wire down with my hand while I stepped over it.  I got back and we kept on going.  An hour or two later, it was Uncle who need a pit stop.  He motioned for me to stop and as he headed for the pasture, I never even bothered to watch.  It never even occurred to me to warn him of the electric fence.  The insulators on the fence posts were clear and visible so current in the fence should probably have been obvious but Uncle had seen me cross the fence.  He had noted that I held the wire with my full hand.  It was only natural for him to assume that we had the power switched off.  I was sitting on the tractor, peacefully dozing when he got back with an outburst of invectives like I had never heard before in my life.

“Why didn’t you tell me that was fence was electric?  I damned near filled my pants when I grabbed that wire.  I thought you had the power off on the thing.”  He went on and on, chewing me out (in very bold Ukrainian expletives).  I sat there clenching my teeth and almost bit my tongue off trying not to laugh as the spectacle of him crossing that fence engulfed me.

Uncle Leon had a heart of gold though and even though he ranted and raved, I knew he had a soft spot for me in his heart.  We were renting Uncle’s land and I often had to move equipment from one field to another through a bluff of trees on his farm.  The trail was winding and that old “Massey 44” tractor I was driving had no power steering.  In fact, to this day I could still swear it had a demon inside it whose sole purpose of existence was to consistently thwart my every effort at making that tractor go where I wanted it to go.  I can still feel the excruciating pain between my shoulders that I suffered after each day of fighting with that steering wheel.  Uncle Leon knew of my struggles and he empathized with me but he was glad I had graduated to the task and relieved him of the battle of trying to manipulate the unruly beast himself. 

One day while I was trying to manoeuvre a cultivator down the narrow trail and I managed to run the front wheel of the tractor too close to a tree.  Trying to correct my mistake, I put the tractor in reverse, but with the cultivator in tow, instead of getting me away from the tree, I only got closer against it and soon I had that tree centered between the front and back wheels so that I could go neither forward nor back.  Realizing my dilemma, I stopped the tractor and walked over to Uncle Leon’s house to consult with him about my next move. 

I dreaded having my husband and or my father-in-law seeing me in that ridiculous predicament I had gotten myself into and Uncle Leon knew it.  What’s more, he was sympathetic to my cause.  He wasn’t about to give his brother an opportunity to flaunt his superiority over either one of us.  Reassuring me that all would be well, he walked with me to the site of my humiliation to survey the situation.  He checked the angle of the offending trees, the position of the tractor and then, head bent down as usual; he quietly considered every potential solution to the problem.  After a few minutes, his head snapped up and he grinned at me with a twinkle in his eyes and an almost triumphant smirk on his face.

“We can do it!” he announced gleefully.  “We can get out of here and they won’t even know it happened!  Come with me.  We need a logging chain and a bar.” 

With his baggy overalls flapping noisily, Uncle Leon set an unusually quick pace for the yard.  He was enthusiastic and full of purpose, noticeably excited at the prospect of out-manipulating his younger brother for a change.  Weighted down with the bar and heavy chain, we got back to the bush and Uncle quickly unhooked the cultivator that was hampering the movement of the tractor.  Hooking the logging chain to the cultivator, he took the other end around a big tree behind it.  Using the bar, we slowly and laboriously winched the cultivator backward about eighteen or twenty inches, just enough to give us room to work the tractor.  Then, anchoring the bar against the front wheel, he told me to edge the tractor back and forth slowly in the other direction as far as possible, letting the bar keep me away from the tree.  By repeating this process a few times, I got the tractor far enough away from the tree to a safe location where we then hooked up the cultivator, backed up to a manoeuvrable distance, steered clear of the tree and jubilantly drove away.  Uncle Leon had saved my dignity and I would forever be grateful.  He also achieved his own validation because my husband and father-in-law never did figure out what had scraped all the bark off those two big trees on that winding bush trail and Uncle and I kept our cunning secret safe with furtive winks at each other every time the subject came up.

There is one more lesson I associate with Uncle Leon but that was just that he was unaware of the potential danger.  He was honestly only trying to help.  He had a very deep well on his farm and it had the coldest water you can imagine.  One hot day while working on his farm, I said I was thirsty.  Always eager to please, Uncle simply drew a pail of water from the deep well and I helped myself to a glass to quench my parched throat.  Within fifteen minutes, my throat had swelled so bad that it seemed about to choke me.  Uncle was beside himself as I sat on that bench wheezing, desperately trying to catch enough air past that swollen throat.  It took more than an hour for the swelling to subside but we both got a scare that day.  I am still afraid to drink ice cold water.

Unfortunate things often happened to Uncle Leon and he didn’t deserve a single one of them.  He was just a lovable old man, trying so hard to rise above his diminutive stature with words and actions that somehow just kept setting him up to look like a slapstick comic.  Even his profanities were entertaining!  Working with Uncle Leon was never dull; it was always an adventure!

The Christmas Turkey

The Christmas Turkey

Every new farmer has to learn about farming.  It's a matter of survival.  Basic intelligence supports that survival.  I grew up on a farm and that being the case; I have no excuse for ignorance.  Contrary to popular belief, ignorance is not always bliss.  Sometimes it can hurt - a lot.

I always prided myself on being a good strong farm girl, capable of handling any situation independently but pride goeth before a fall.  I learned, and quite reluctantly, had to admit, that my strength and independence had limitations. 

One year, in lieu of payment for some service we had provided, a neighbour gave us a tom turkey for Thanksgiving, but since we normally did not do the big Thanksgiving dinner deal, we decided to save him for Christmas.  We put him into the chicken coop and there he strutted proudly among the chickens, gorging himself incessantly on the constantly available nutritious grain.  By Christmas, his already adult weight and size had almost doubled.  He just forgot to stop growing! 

Christmas at our house always meant lots of relatives, friends, and neighbours so a turkey would go along way to satisfying all those hungry appetites.  A couple of days before the big day, I informed my husband that it was time to dress Tommy for Christmas.  John got the chopping block cleaned off, got the axe and on the way to the chicken coop, he proceeded to tell me how to aim that axe so as not to waste all that good meat on the turkey's neck.

I was stunned.  It had never occurred to me that I would be wielding the guillotine.

"I'm not chopping his neck off!"  I protested in alarm.  "You do that.  I'll hold him."

With his proud regal strut, and that welcoming "gobble, gobble gobble," those beady eyes watching me with such respect each time I brought feed or came to collect the eggs that the hens so obligingly deposited for me, I had grown rather fond of His Majesty.  Not enough to spare him his fate; mind you, but enough to make me refuse to wield the axe on that meaty neck of his. 

"Are you crazy?  You'll never be able to hold him.  That sucker weighs as much as you do."  John scoffed in disbelief.

I was insulted.  "I can too, hold him.  I'm strong as horse and you know it!  I can keep up with you at any farm job."

"You may be tough, but you'll never hold that turkey."  John sneered, conviction and scorn dripping in his voice.

This whole thing was taking on a turn I had not anticipated and the prospect of that turkey dinner was not as enticing anymore.  But John’s lack of confidence in me stung to the core!  I was tough.

I was adamant - and defiant now.  How dare he presume that I was such a weakling?  I'll show him!

"You wield the axe.  I'll hold the turkey."  I insisted doggedly.

Patiently, John tried to explain the facts of life to me.  "You don't understand.  When his head gets chopped off, that bird's reflexes will go ballistic.  He'll jerk and jump like a yo-yo out of control.  He'll beat himself - and you - black and blue with his wings.  You won't be able salvage any meat by the time he's finished."

I had killed enough chickens to know that a bird without a head can do two or three whole minutes of frenzied reflex dancing before the nerves succumb.  But I was a good strong farmer and I would handle that sucker! 

"I'll hold the turkey." I declared resolutely fairly daring him to cross me.

After a few more explanations and remonstrations, John finally sighed.  "You're going to have to hold on tight if you want to eat that bird." he warned.

"Don't you worry, I will." 

We cornered the confused turkey-cum-dinner and grabbing him in a firm arm lock, John soon had him at the chopping block.  He checked once more with me if I had come to my senses but I was unyielding. 

I glared stubbornly at him.  With obstinate determination borne of confidence in my own inflated ability and strength, I clamped the spindly feet tightly between my knees and, slipping my hands along its body, I gripped the wings firmly from beneath.  Convinced I had that bird securely trussed, I nodded to John that I was ready.  He gave me a condescending look that clearly indicated his disbelief at my lack of intelligence and pulled the neck into just the right spot on the chopping block.  At his final pause as if to say "Last chance to change your mind," I nodded.  In resignation, he let the guillotine drop.

I couldn't say I hadn't been warned but I must admit I was ill prepared for the absurdity that followed.  Minus a head, that turkey's adrenaline went into overdrive and its power multiplied a thousandfold.  Somehow, those spindly legs vaulted free of my knee's stranglehold.  With the force of a charging rhino, I found myself being catapulted through space, onto my back, onto my side, on my feet and off again, bouncing around like balloon that had not been tied properly.  The turkey neck was rotating, spewing blood in every direction and I was now covered with it.  Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of John helplessly trying to catch up to us but it was no use.  This rocketing Tasmanian devil didn't stop long enough for him to grab a hold.  Desperately, I held on tight, remembering John’s warning that I would not be able to salvage any meat if I let his wings loose.  I clenched my teeth and my fists and hung on as I had never done before.  I felt myself hurtling around like an unguided missile, frantically wishing that this Pandemonium would end, that the stupid bird would die already, because if it didn't die soon, I was certain that I would.

After an eternity, I found myself lying quietly on my back, the crazy turkey on top of me, its now still legs pointing to the sun, blood from its now limp neck slowly dripping down the neck of my parka.  My arms were still securely locked around its body but they felt like quivering jelly.  As a matter of fact, my whole body felt like quivering jelly.  But I hadn’t let that turkey beat himself up.  Beating me up was another matter.  I now had no strength to move.  The turkey had sapped it all.  John came and lifted the turkey off me and then extended a hand to help me up.  The yard looked like a war zone with blood everywhere on the white snow.  John said nothing and neither did I.  He carried that turkey into the house and I meekly followed him.  I went straight into the shower, parka and all.  When I finally emerged almost an hour later, I was clean but every muscle in my body was screamed in agony. 

John left the house while I was in the bathroom washing up.  He didn't come in till late in the evening.  I didn't know if he was angry and punishing me for my stupidity or if he was killing himself laughing out behind the shed.  I honestly didn't care.  What ever it was, I was grateful he was doing it well out of my sight and earshot.  Suffering silently in pain and indignity, I plucked the feathers off that wild Brahma-bull of a bird and by evening, I had him safely in the cold room, gutted, clean and washed. 

On Christmas day, still enduring excruciating pain in places I had never even known I had, I dressed and cooked that turkey for the big gang that were expecting for Christmas dinner.  Everybody enjoyed it except me.  I ached too much to enjoy anything for almost two whole weeks and it was months before my body regained its normal fleshy tones.  There are muscles in my body that still have vivid memories of that Christmas turkey and I have never felt so arrogant about my prowess and efficacy as a farmer since that turkey gave me a lesson in humility.

Finale "Challenges of a Housewife" Part 4

Final chapter of "Challenges of a Housewife"

My heart was beating like a bongo drum.  This was Judgement Day!  I didn't know if John knew what I had been up to.  I didn't know if he had spoken to his father.  The white car had driven in that direction.  Had Dad taken the strangers out to the field to meet his son and prove to them that not all of his family were raving lunatics?

John took his time.  He filled the tractor with fuel, then stopped into the shed for something.  In the house, suffering intolerable suspense, I waited impatiently for the axe to fall, sick to my stomach, my heart hammering out a staccato beat. Whatever was going to happen, let it happen now - and quickly.  I can't stop it!  I couldn't even pray. 

After what seemed like an eternity, John came to the house.  The absence of shock on his face when he walked in told me he had come prepared for a major cataclysm.  He must have had visitors out in that field.  Perhaps the well-dressed strangers had warned him about what to expect.  It was doubtful that his father could have been coherent enough to explain what they had witnessed. 

Wordlessly ignoring me, John walked around the kitchen, looking at the gaping holes in the wall; the stairs that were now missing the three angling steps; and the empty north wall where the foot of the stairway used to be.  He walked through the opening in the wall into what used to be the bedroom and noted the bottom of the stairway waiting for the three angling steps that would connect it to the rest of the stairs.  He stood staring at the patched up wall facing the living room, at the doorway that was no more. 

I was glad I had had the time to clean up before he got home.  The place looked much less daunting this way.  Still, I was paralyzed with fear.  I waited, my heart pounding wildly for some reaction that would indicate to me whether I should run for my life or just stand there silently, prepared to meet My Maker.

"How do you propose to finish this?" John finally asked.  His voice was calm and he actually sounded sincere in his query - like he honestly wanted to know!  I couldn't believe my ears.  My knees turned to jelly, and my heart leapt in relief and exhilaration.  Was he actually going to support me in this project?

"Well, all we have to do now is build a wall to close off this stairway, put a door here to this old bedroom and we have two whole walls for cupboards.  We can take this old little cupboard out and put the stove here instead.  That will make the room smaller for floor space but there will be a lot more room for everything else.  And see, behind this door we still have the stairs to the basement and all we have to do is make those three curving stairs up here and the stairway is as good as new - and out of the way!

I was rambling on excitedly now.  God had heard my prayers.  My husband was going to let me live.  He was listening to me and I was not only going to live, but it appeared as if I was going to have my beautiful new kitchen!  My enthusiasm was beyond all bounds. 

"I'll go get the plywood and some two-by-fours before Hryhorchuk closes the store."  Still calm, John turned and walked out to the truck and drove toward town.  I was all a flutter now.  Had it really been that easy?  Was it really going to happen this quickly?  Was I really going to get away this peacefully?  My emotions vacillated between relief and disbelief, excitement and fear.  "If I am dreaming, please Lord, don't let me wake up" I prayed.

It was now after five and I had to start supper, so I heaved the stove into position, connected the pipes and set out to make supper.  If my husband was truly as supportive as he seemed to be, I was going to make him a supper of all suppers!  He deserved it! 

After supper, there was still enough daylight left to do some work so we set up to make those three angling stairs to the upstairs bedrooms.  There was no way we could sleep downstairs in that dusty, and now with the stairway, crowded, old bedroom.  We needed those stairs, so we fixed them.  Then we hauled up the mattresses and by midnight we were settled in our new bedrooms upstairs.  We had worked calmly together, John didn't seem the least bit angry, though he said very little.  Still, I was eternally grateful. 

The next day, John did not go into the fields.  Instead, we built the wall, finished off the doorways, and he even got me some clay to patch those gouges in plaster around that closed off doorway. 

When we finished, John informed me, "I'm going to go see if Nick can come and do the cupboards."  Nick was his brother-in-law.  He was a carpenter.

Within a month, I had beautiful white paint on my brand new kitchen cupboards, along the whole north wall; beautiful new wallpaper on the walls and a kitchen that I was delighted about.  John and I even discussed replacing the old wood stove with an electric one someday and adding a refrigerator and perhaps even a freezer! against that brand spanking new east wall - “when we get hydro in year or two”.

Friends and neighbours that came to visit could not congratulate us enough on our renovations and John got most of the complements about it.  Few people knew about how those renovations came about.  I didn't care.  I got what I wanted out of the deal - my fantastic kitchen.  Besides, John deserved all that credit for supporting me, even if it was only after his options were eliminated.  Even my father-in-law was proud of the house when that kitchen got finished.  He had a "modern" house to gloat about now.  For years after, my evening ritual was to stand in the doorway and admire my kitchen before I went to bed.  Perhaps that kitchen would not have been the answer to every woman's dream, but it certainly was the answer to mine!

Necessity may be the “mother of invention,” but it is “desperation that makes things happen!”  Faint hearts do nothing at all!

"Challenges of a Housewife" Part 3

I was trapped!  I could hardly pretend I wasn’t home; the kids were out there on the lawn.  There was no time to camouflage my project and no time to clean up either the mess or me.  If ever anyone needed to freeze time, this was definitely it!  I had reduced my father-in-law's pride and joy to a shamble of dust and debris.  I was sure it would appear totally hopeless at this point.  I knew it would be devastating blow to his pride in front of these people he was obviously trying so hard to impress.  I was doomed.

I watched in horror as my proud, unsuspecting father-in-law led his guests to view what he had every reason to believe would be a "nice house".  Engrossed in his usual zealous prattle, Father failed to notice the pile of debris off to the side where I had deposited the broken sections of wall from the bedroom.  He was ill-prepared for the destruction that beset his eyes when he stepped across the threshold.  As his jaw dropped to reveal a gaping mouth, a cloud of dust assailed his lungs.  His discourse stopped mid-word and his face turned ashen.  At that moment, I was truly afraid he might just suffer a heart attack.

You could have heard a fly sneeze in the silence that followed.  Father and his guests stood motionless, staring at the wreckage before them.  I stared helplessly back at them, unable to think, to utter any excuse, any explanation or any apology.  There was nothing I could say and it was obvious that there was nothing they could say, judging by the shock on their faces.  Nobody moved or spoke for what seemed like hours, but honestly could have only been minutes, while each one of us tried to get past the deadness that had overtaken each of us. 

It was one of the strangers that finally spoke first. 

"I guess you are doing some renovations," he said and I stared at him mutely.  Dad was still in a trance.  His eyes were fixed, his mouth was still open, and his breath was coming in raspy gasps from somewhere beneath the grinding rapids of his racing heart.  The taller of the two strangers seemed to gain his composure first.

"We should let you get back to your work," he verbalized kindly, obviously trying hard to provide this stunned assemblage with the benefit of an escape hatch.  "We'll come back another time."

I just nodded numbly. 

"Come, let's go take a drive through the country," he urged but my Father-in-law was paralyzed with shock.  His mouth was still gaping and eyes were still fixed like protruding marbles in his head.  He hadn't blinked once since he stepped into the room.  The man put his arm around Father's shoulder.  "Come," he urged but Father stood rooted in his tracks. .  He had turned into a virtual stone statue.  In desperation, the man motioned to the other stranger.

Gently but firmly, they linked their arms with Father's and between them, they managed to turn Father around to face the doorway.  Then with great difficulty and with as much dignity as they could muster, they got him down the steps and onto the sidewalk.  Wedged between the two men, Dad staggered. zombie-style, towards the car where they helped him into the front seat.  As they all got into the car, I took my first deep breath since their arrival. 

As I watched the white car with the smartly dressed strangers and my stupefied father-in-law pull out of the yard, it suddenly hit me.  The result of this afternoon may affect me profoundly.  My father-in-law will come out of his stupor sooner or later and when he does, Heaven only knew what ramifications there would be for these rash actions of mine to deface his precious house.  He had a violent temper, I knew that, but he had never ever directed it at me.  Quite frankly, I could not picture him doing so, but then I had always been a docile daughter-in-law and had never given him any cause to vent at me - never, that is, until now.  This time I did it right though.  This was the mother of all misdemeanours.  Maybe I hadn't asked for reprisals till now but this time, instead of asking for a sample, I had demanded the full rack.  And that was not even taking my husband into account!  This may just be the last day of my earthly life!

The wind had totally gone out of my sails regarding the renovations.  Gone was the bravado, the enthusiasm and excitement of a functional and, perhaps even beautiful, kitchen.  Would I live to see it even?  And even if I survived with my life, would I be banished forever from the house and the farm?  John would probably divorce me on the urging of his very insistent father, his mother would land up taking care of my kids and I would never even be allowed to see my precious babies anymore.  I felt physically sick! 

Why, oh why, hadn't I left well enough alone?  This was no minor indiscretion I had been toying with here.  There were going to be major repercussions!  Helplessly I looked around me at the mess.  I tried to see it as Father and those strangers had seen it, without the wistful image of a neat kitchen to blanch the stark ugliness of the debris. 

That was it!  I could remove that ugliness.  Perhaps I could soften the blow of my impetuous action if I brought the image of that kitchen into the foreground.  The kids were awake and I quickly gave them more wieners and buns and Kool Aid.  Thank God they had not learned the art of rejecting a repeat meal yet.  I worked feverishly, packing the debris into a box that I could easily haul out to the garbage out behind the woodpile.  Then I finished anchoring the slab of wall into the opening between the bedroom and the living room.  I would have to plaster that wall to smooth it in preparation for the wallpaper, but for now, it looked half decent.  Next I swept and washed the floors and the walls, removing as much of the dust as I possibly could.  I was shaking out the sheets from the furniture covers when John came home.

Final entry next week

Challenges of a Housewife Part 2

Continuation of "Challenges of a Housewife" 

I heaved the big cast iron stove out of its niche under the stairs, releasing clouds of black soot into the room when I disconnected the chimney pipes.  Then I measured off where I wanted to make the opening for the door to the bedroom.  This doorway had to be the exact same size of the living-to-bedroom doorway because I would have to use that slab of wall to seal that doorway later.  I could not afford to make any error here.

Drilling the holes at the top to make clean-cut corners sent billows of dust to mingle with the soot that was already in the room, but when I started the chain saw to cut out the doorway I almost lost my nerve.  The clay plaster of the wall protested against the chewing teeth with a dust storm that would have made the Sahara wince.  And worse yet, every now and then the blade connected with either a pebble in the clay or perhaps a nail because I'd hear this blood curdling screech and fiery sparks burst from the bottom of the chain saw.  Heaven only knew what was happening on the other side.  I pulled the blade out and raced through the dining - living room to the bedroom to make sure I hadn't started a fire there.

No, it was fine but I knew that the chainsaw blades were being damaged by those rocks and nails.  Still I had to go on.  Back I went to my chainsaw to finish the cut.  It took me less than ten minutes to make the two six-foot vertical cuts.  The timing beat the hand saw by a mile but I was nearly choking, partly from the dust but mostly from the exhaust fumes from the gas powered chain saw.  I shut off the saw and staggered outside.

While waiting for my breathing to resume, I reassessed my situation.  This plan would work, but I had to make some adjustments if I wanted to keep breathing.  Wrapping a bandana over my nose and mouth, I tied it securely at the back of my neck and then went inside that dust bowl that used to be my house.  I opened every window and door that would open, upstairs and down, to let the breeze roam freely throughout. 

Now I was back in business.  The horizontal cut along the top, however, presented me with a problem.  The chainsaw was too heavy for me to cut a straight line horizontally above my head.  It took me more than half an hour to make the thirty two inch cut with the hand saw but finally I had the piece of wall isolated.  Careful not to let it fall and break apart, I pried it loose and walked it a couple of feet over then propped it against the wall in preparation for the next phase of my renovations - sealing off the living-to-bedroom opening. 

Checking my watch, I decided to make the other cut in the wall to divert those descending stairs into the bedroom.  This cut had to be made floor to ceiling on both sides except that one side had to go right up against the outside north wall and the top had to be flush with the ceiling.  For these cuts, I would be unable to use the chainsaw because there was no room for it. 

I made the internal floor to ceiling cut with the chainsaw, standing on a chair.  Fine.  Now for the more difficult outside wall and ceiling flush cuts.  I checked the kids, gave them some of their favourite wieners, buns, cookies and milk then ran back into the house to continue with my project.  I worked hastily, using the handsaw against the ceiling, fighting that clock that seemed to have entered the Indy 500 races.  The fuel on the big tractor would last till late in the afternoon but I had to have the basic work done before John came home or my project would be sabotaged for sure.  The knuckles on my hands were raw and bleeding, but I had the ceiling cut complete with only the outside wall cut left to do. 

I had to break to fix John's lunch.  With sandwiches and an ample supply of water and Kool Aid, I gathered the kids into the car and we sped out to the far field where Daddy worked.  In the field, I quickly unpacked the lunch before John got down from the tractor so he would not notice my bleeding knuckles then made light conversation to divert his attention to the kids.  I waited impatiently for him to finish eating so I could get back to my project. 

At home, I spread a blanket on the lawn in the shade of the big maples, brought out some pillows and told Jim to put the girls down for their nap.  They all thought it was neat idea.  There was no way I could let them sleep in the house.  They would suffocate in that dust but I didn't tell them that.  Jim was always a good little helper with the girls and as long as they had enough distractions, the kids could be fine with just minimal supervision.

I went back to that wall but as I glanced up at the spots of blood on the ceiling and then looked at the wall where I had to do another flush cut, I cringed.  I grabbed some rags, wrapped my hands to protect them from the abrasions, and sawed my way down along the wall.  Why didn't I do this in the first place?  I could have saved the skin on those knuckles. 

The cutting finished, I went to the bedroom and moved the mattress off the bed setting it against the couch in the living room.  The bed frame and dresser I moved against the far wall.  Now I had room for that slab of wall and eventually for the descending stairway!  From the kitchen side I pushed the cut-away section of wall away from the stairwell.  When it started creaking, I jumped back onto the third step and watched the curve of the stairway pull apart with the weight of the four by eight foot section of clay-plastered slats that held it together.  With a thunderous crash it fell to the floor of the bedroom sending ever more clouds of clay dust into air as the huge slab cracked into several splintered sections of debris.  I now had a gaping hole in the wall and the area was ready for a redirection of the stairway.  I had to clean that mass of clay wall off the bedroom floor next.  I took the garbage outside and cleared the corner to make room for the three descending steps. 

Then, using the crowbar I was able to loosen the bottom section of the stairway from its position but getting it to the bedroom through that thirty-two inch opening was a whole other matter.  Heaving it onto its side, I managed to push, pull and manoeuvre it through.  After more huffing and puffing, I had the stairs functional minus those three angling steps.  Great!

Now I was at the second stage.  If my luck would just hold out, if my lungs continue functioning, if my stamina endures, I just might manage to carry this off.  Some of my muscles were complaining and my lungs were pleading for clean air but I wasn’t taking time out to listen.  I couldn’t afford to.  Time was of the essence here and this was a “do now or die forever” project!

Now to close the doorway between the bedroom and living room.  I ripped all the mouldings off the living-to-bedroom doorway and stripped all the boards off leaving a raw hole into which I hoped to fit the cut out section of the wall from under the stairs.  I moved the big recliner against the opening to act as a sort of anchor to prevent it from falling through in case it leaned.  Panting from the exertion and rushing, I wedged and wiggled the slab to its new position, sealing the doorway between those two rooms.  Fitting it in was a challenge but finally I had it exactly where I wanted it.  To secure it, I gouged out some clay in the wall and in the slab so I could nail slats to both pieces that would hold the huge slab in position.  One more nail, strategically placed and this phase of my project would be done 

I was busily doing this when I heard a car pull into the driveway and my heart lurched in dismay.  "Please God, no company today," I prayed fervently as I ran to the door to check.

But God had given me enough help today with the cuts and with the walls.  His patience must have run out and He was allowing company to come in spite of my desperate prayers.  Covered with dust and sweat, my hair so matted it would have made a farm dog blush, I watched in consternation as my father-in-law and two smartly dressed strangers emerged from a shining white Pontiac.  From his animated gestures I could tell that my father-in-law was giving his listeners a glowing report of the farm and all the other assets as he proudly escorted them to the house.  

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

Challenges of a Housewife Part 1

DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE

"There has GOT to be a way."  In exasperation, I gazed around my large kitchen that had no room for anything other than perhaps a dance in the middle of the floor.  My mind raced around brainstorming for ideas, desperately seeking some workable solution to my dilemma.  A room fourteen feet long and twelve feet wide and all I had for cupboard space was a credenza thirty inches wide by thirty inches high and twenty inches deep with a hutch above it that was only ten inches deep!

When I married, I had moved onto my husband's home place that his parents had left for him when they moved to town.  This house was his dad's pride and joy, a house he had built himself fifteen years earlier.  A modest home, as farm homes went, two story wooden structure, twenty-four feet by twenty-four feet, with a lesser concrete basement underneath, it was heated with a huge home-made furnace - an old 45-gallon-oil-drum-firebox enclosed in an outer shell of brick and mortar.  It may have been fine once, but now, even I, coming from humble beginning and a poor family, was used to having more cupboard space than this house provided. 

My own father was a jack-of-all-trades.  He built or added things as the need arose.  When more cupboard space was needed, he simply got some lumber (home-planed), put his saw and hammer to work and presto - more cupboards.  Here in this house, even with my meagre supply of dishes, pots and pans and grocery supplies, the space was dismally inadequate.

I had spoken to my husband time and time again about this deficiency, but my pleas always fell on deaf ears.  He was not a handyman around the house.  Had I asked him to build me a shed or a barn, he might have been able to oblige but cupboards for the kitchen were not his forte.  As well, he was probably reluctant to do any alterations to his father's pride and joy, no matter how necessary.  Therefore, for six years I had put up with this major inconvenience.  Now I was at the end of my patience.  Something had to change and it was obvious I had to initiate that change.

I knew I was treading on forbidden territory, but after all, this was my home now.  I had been patient and servile for six years.  Surely, I had served my sentence.  It was time to take matters into my own hands and make this kitchen work for ME. 

I took a quick inventory of the assets and liabilities of the house.  The main floor of the house had four rooms.  There was the bedroom in the north-east corner, nine feet by twelve.  This opened southward into the eleven by fourteen foot living room which in turn opened via a large seven foot wide square archway into the nine by eleven foot (almost redundant) formal dining room to the southwest.  The dining room was separated from the kitchen by a door that had to be closed on cold winter days because although both the living and dining room faced the south, they had large double windows on each outside wall.  These were so sealed that when a south or west wind howled at forty miles per hour outside, it slowed down to a mere thirty miles per hour inside.  Even with the primitive furnace puffing heat at full blast from the two floor rads, on those days the living and dining rooms were uninhabitable.  The upstairs had only three rooms because of the slope of the roof on the north and south sides but it was even colder with only the stairway door and one 15 inch by 15 inch ceiling to floor rad to let heat up there from downstairs.  “Forced air” heat was an unheard of term and convection heat was how things were done.

The six-inch clay-plastered walls covered with the wooden siding did little to preserve the heat.  Time had left invisible cracks in the dry clay underneath the siding and there was  no vapour barrier plastic to impede the Jack Frost’s invasion into the house.  So we closed the door to the dining room and between the wood stove and the furnace we huddled together in the kitchen to maintain a semblance of comfort.  Eventually, though, we installed a big box stove in the living room because, with three kids, it was just too crowed in the kitchen.

Now the kitchen, in the northwest corner of the house was a work of art.  The south wall - fourteen feet of it - had four feet under the elaborate stairway but that was utilized because my woodstove and wood box occupied this south east cubbyhole.  The other ten feet accommodated my “kitchen cupboard”; the door to the dining room; and the remaining three feet of wall held the hooks for the coats - an absolute necessity in this closetless dwelling.  The west wall, twelve feet of it - had the outside door and a large double window against which we kept the kitchen table and chairs nestled into the corner of the room.  No room for cupboards there.  The north wall, just beyond the table had just enough room for a small washstand with the necessary basin on it that served as our “bathroom”.  The remaining ten feet were taken up with a huge bannistered stairway that angled in the corner to go up the rest of the way along the whole east wall of the kitchen, above the stove.  Underneath this, the wood box and the trap door to the basement.  That was it!  No room for cupboards in this huge room because monstrous stairway took two walls! 

What to do?  That stairway!  That was the culprit.  It had to go!  We had three bedrooms upstairs; we didn't really need the one downstairs.  Besides, with the kids growing up, we pretty well had to move upstairs now anyway.  We’d cut another rad into the ceiling to get more heat up there.  If I could redirect the descending stairway from the kitchen's north wall into the bedroom and wall off the main stairway on the east, it would make my kitchen ten by twelve but it would give me two full walls free for other things, Like cupboards, for instance. 

All I had to do, I decided, was cut out two doorway-sized sections of the east wall of the kitchen - one under the main stairs and the other at the descending end of that stairway and put one solid east wall to close off that stairway and voila! a north and east wall to do with as I pleased.  I could then redirect the descending steps to the bedroom, seal off the door between the living and bedroom and I'd have free wall space in the kitchen, the bedroom and living room  Entry into the east room would be from the kitchen side.  I was sure I could do it.  I had watched my dad do fantastic things with a hammer and saw.  I felt sure I could do it too.  Besides, I knew that if I didn't do it, I'd be living like this for probably the rest of my life and I was determined not to do that.

With my scheme finalized I waited for my opportunity.  I knew that if I told my husband what I intended to do, he was sure to veto the idea and then I would never be able to go ahead with it.  So I decided to wait - wait until I knew he was away for the day and then I would do it myself.  Hopefully, by the time he got home, the major work would be done so that turning back would not be an option.  That was my plan and I fervently prayed that it would work.

I often worked out in the fields with my husband - he on one tractor, me on the other, while his mother stayed at home with the kids and made meals for us.  But sometimes during the summer when the spraying and summerfallow were done and it was still too early for haying, we had a slack period.  I would then get a break and stay home while he went to the work the fields alone.  That would give me the chance to put my plan into action.  That was the day was that I was waiting for.

My break came one day in early July when my husband went out to the far quarter to do the summerfallow.  I was left at home with the kids.  He left shortly after seven and I wasted no time.  I had a great deal to do and I could not afford to waste a single minute.  I threw some sheets over the bed, the living room couch and chairs to protect them from the dust and set up the kids to play outside near the house where I could keep an eye on them.  Then I went to the shed, got the chain saw, a drill, a hand saw, a crowbar, an axe and a hammer and started "Project Renovation"! 

Continued next week....