vituperation

Thursday afternoon, still high from having “fixed” my truck like a real man, I drove over to River City with Robyn to shop for a Chilton manual for the F-150. We got stuck in traffic on the way to Lotsa Books, and as fortune would have it we were stuck right behind a truckload of white leghorns bound for processing at Wayne Farms.

Rows of battery cages towered over the car, the once-white chickens crammed so tightly in each that they couldn’t move. Their beautiful white feathers were now yellowy-brown, smeared and caked with feces. Several dead chickens were plainly visible, and most of the chickens were missing the majority of their tail feathers. The visible skin looked raw and angry.

Not a single chicken looked alert. Their eyes were dull and they were quiet, not moving except for the occasional shift for better purchase. When the truck moved, showers of dirty white feathers swirled about. Be thankful we didn’t have a camera with us for once.

Robyn and I had a long talk while we were behind that truck. Seeing those chickens, and knowing that they were on their way to go through a disease-ridden processing facility on their way to the grocery store, may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Plans are currently underway for a bigger coop and larger pen, so we can add some meat birds to the flock next year. Construction begins when the shed is complete.

And speaking of the shed, it’s almost complete. Here’s what it mostly looks like now (I’ve started adding latches and handles to the doors since these pictures were taken) :

Those are the double doors that open for me to back
the tractor in to hook up attachments.

The far end.

The garden end, with a door for access to garden tools.

I am insanely proud of the fact that I built it all myself from the ground up. It may have taken me three months, and it may be ugly, but dammit, it’s all mine.

To do: finish installing latches, trim out the corners with 1″x4″, paint, and plug the openings between the rafters so wasps can’t get in. If things go well, I’ll finish this weekend. Then it’s time to build some cat something or other Robyn wants and start putting up the fence for the new chicken yard.

Never a boring moment in the country.

As it turned out, Lotsa Books had a few Chilton manuals, but not one that covered a pickup from the early 90’s. I bought a couple of magazines (who ever knew that Grit, advertised on the back page of Boy’s Life all through my youth, was such a good magazine?) and asked if there were any other big book stores in River City.

There aren’t, but when I told him what I was looking for he said, “They should have those at any of the auto parts shops — Auto Zone, Advance Auto, or (Oh oh oh!) O’Reilly.”

The fact that such obvious things escape me on a regular basis is somewhat disturbing.

Sure enough, Advance Auto had the Haynes manual for my truck. I bought it, and Thursday night I read up on Man Project #1: Changing the oil. The next day on the way home from work, I stopped at O’Reilly in Madison and picked up six quarts of oil, a fancypants catch pan, a filter, a filter removal attachment for my socket wrench, an air filter. All that stuff cost me $3 less than my last oil change. Future oil changes should cost me about $15, instead of the $30 - $35 I normally pay at the Express Oil Change.

Being a man can save you some money.

It took longer than it should have, and I got oil all over my arms (boy, that stuff just gushes when you get the plug out, doesn’t it?), but I by God changed the oil in the truck. And the truck still ran when I was finished, so I must’ve done something right.

When I was changing the air filter, I discovered a couple of things. First, there was no coolant at all in the reservoir. Probably that’s not a good thing. Second, I found that one of the screws holding the filter cover on had stripped out the hole in the cover, and the previous owner put a round nut on the bottom to hold things together. Fishing some pliers through the tight squeezes so I could hold the nut while I removed the screw was a bitch, but I got it done.

After I’d wiped all the oil off myself and strutted around for a bit thumping my chest, I decided to drive to Advance Auto in Otisburg for some anti-freeze and a nut that was easier to grasp. I wandered around the shop for a couple of minutes before the teenage girl behind the counter came over.

“Sir, can I help you find something?” she asked.

I held up the nut.

“I’m looking for a fly nut to replace this,” I said, proud of myself for knowing exactly what I wanted.

She looked perplexed.

“I’m not sure I know what that is.”

I tried not to sound condescending, being an oil-scented manly man around the teeny bopper and all.

“It’s round like this nut,” I said, pointing. “But it has a couple of flanges coming off the side so you can grab it easier.”

Her brow wrinkled.

“Is it anything like a wing nut?” she asked.

Pwned in the Advance Auto. By a girl.

Oh, well. It was good being a manly man while it lasted.

I lifted the top off the smoker and looked inside.

Hmmm. Not too hot.

The smoker had been going for a half hour, and by now things should have been heating up nicely. But they weren’t. The Boston butt and chuck roast hadn’t even started to sweat.

It’s too cold here, I thought. Hell, it’s like forty degrees out here and you’ve got the damn thing sitting in the shade. Of course it’s not heating up.

Robyn accuses me of always trying think of “better ways” for her to do things, but I don’t limit my thoughts of improvement to her. I’m constantly working to improve the way I do things.

Sunday morning, I considered how I could make the smoker heat more.

Move it out of the shade, I thought. If it’s in the sun, it’ll get hotter faster, no matter how cool it is out here.

My idea made sense to me, so I went inside to get a couple of hat pads. I’d need to lift the smoker by the bottom, where the heating element is.

I surveyed the area carefully. Because the smoker was getting power from a utility cord from the workshop, to carry it to the part of the driveway I wanted to meant I would need to go back toward the shop to get around the big oak tree and ensure the cord would reach. No problem. I stepped to the side of the stoop, grabbed the bottom of the smoker, and pulled it over the edge, taking care to keep it away from my body because of the heat.

Now.

The smoker is comprised of many parts. The bottom is a hollow stand with three legs and a hole in the side where the element goes. Inside the bottom is a pan filled with lava rocks. The element rests on top of those rocks. The next section is about two feet tall and is nothing more than a hollow cylinder with a door in the side and two sets of brackets attached to rest the grills on. The door is so you can add wood for smoke, or add water to the water pan. Yes, the water pan. It rests on the lower set of brackets, and a grill sits on it. A second grill rests on the top set of brackets, and the whole thing is topped off with a domed lid. The entire smoker is between 3 and 3 1/2 feet tall.

As the entire thing — smoker, water, and meat — slid off the stoop I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. This thing weighed about sixty pounds, and I had to hold it out at arm’s length so I wouldn’t get burned. Add to that the fact that the pan of water is suspended a foot above where my hands were, and I had a disaster waiting to happen.

Or a comedy.

I staggered across the yard to and fro, first forward and then backwards, as I tried to keep the smoker balanced. Little plops of water splashed over the edges of the pan inside, popping and sizzling when they hit the hot rocks below. The chickens, who had been gathered by the fence to watch me in hopes that I would dole out some crackscratch, scattered in a squawking whirlwind when I stumbled toward them.

I managed to catch my balance just before I crashed into the fence, and carefully made my way around the oak tree and onto the driveway. I looked at the side door for Robyn, a huge grin plastered on my face, but she remained oblivious at her desk, staring at the monitor. Oh, well.

I took the smoker over to the garage. That’s where I discovered I really hadn’t thought my cunning plan all the way through. How the hell are you supposed to set down a 3-foot tower of pieces when all you can hold on to is the bottom? When you have to hold it away from your body, so you can’t squat down?

I lunged, just like all those times during weight training. One foot forward, other knee down to the ground. Perfect. Or was, until the smoker was three inches off the ground, and I lost control of it and the whole thing came crashing down in a wave of meat, metal, water, and butt rub.

I certainly hope our neighbors enjoy their daily episode of The Fred Show.