Overwhelmed

          Here I sit, blinking my eyes and rubbing my head. Where do I start, where do I start, is running around in my head being chased by At the Beginning, The Other Bridge, Heavy On My Heart, Somebody Loves Me, Snow and Fog Pictures, and finally, Other Things. It overwhelms this feeble brain of mine and just like my computer when asked to do too much at one time, it freezes — I freeze — the little wheel spins round and round and nothing gets done.

          I've made a decision. At The Beginning it is!

          Work started on the other bridge this week. The first thing they did was to get the crane out of Vernon's hay field. We watched as Justin used the claw of a hammer to bring boards up out of the ground.

          When that didn't work, Wayne came in with a digging bar. I hadn't even realized they parked the crane on boards.

          They carried the boards out of the field and piled them in the ditch for the crane to back over. I'm not sure what they were worried about but I doubt a crane that size could be toppled or even stuck in that little ditch. 

          It really left a mess in the field. But not to worry. It was almost good as new by the time they got done fixing it.

          The crane is big; it takes up the whole road. 

          And it's slow. A quarter past eight we watched them pull it out of the field. It was after one when we decided to check on them again and the crane was parked at the top of the hill. 

          "Did it run out of gas?" Mike guessed since there was a gas truck parked there too.

          As we got closer, I could hear the crane was running so it wasn't out of gas.

          As we passed, I could see the truck driver was eating his lunch. "He probably just delivered up to the well site," Mike guessed again. The gas trucks deliver several times a week to keep the generators running.

          Before long all of our questions were answered. The crane was waiting for the track hoe to get there and break up the ice on the road. It seems funny that something as big and heavy as that crane can't handle a little ice, but they weren't taking any chances. The track hoe ran up and down the hill four or five times before the operator got back in the crane and took it the rest of the way to the bridge.

          At one point Mike took a mini side trip up the driveway to the new garage the hunters built. He helps keep an eye on the place when the guys aren't here and I took these two pictures.

          The next day we watched as they took the old bridge out.

          It's pretty narrow down at the bridge site but Mike found a place for us to park out of the way. They dug the dirt away from the bridge.

          They have different attachments for the track hoe, more than I even knew existed. They removed the concrete cracking jaws and put on the shears. I hadn't seen them put the jaws back in the stand and in fact, didn't even realize they were stands until they pulled the shears out. 

           Then they greased it. Greg and Justin set to work. "Look, Mike, it is a two-person job!" I jest. Greasing the tractor is one of the few jobs Mike does do on his own.

          "Do they grease it once a day or just once per job?" you wonder.

          I know, right! I wondered the very same thing! They grease it every time they use it. 

          The plan was to pull the bridge onto land and cut it up. Greg, operating the track hoe, grabbed a beam and pulled.

           The bridge came off the other abutment and splashed into the creek.

 

          When he tried to drag it up on land, one of the under-beams would catch and he couldn't pull it up.

           So he cut her up right where she lay.

 

          As the pieces of the bridge came away, they went right into a waiting truck.

           Finally, it was light enough Greg could lift the offending beam over the edge of the abutment and drag the rest of the bridge out of the creek.

          He used the jaws of the shears to roll up pieces of the grate. 

          "There's your bridge!" he called when it was all done.

          Indeed. It doesn't look like much now.

          "It only took three hours," Greg told me.

          "Peg, is that good or bad?" you wanna know.

          I know, right! I wanted to know the same thing. So I asked.

          "It's good," Greg affirmed.

          But there was no time for celebrating as Duane got out the transit and sighted stuff. Justin said something to him and Duane got the plans out. He flipped back and forth for a few minutes until he found what he was looking for. "Yeah, if you go twenty feet that oughta be good."

          Down into the creek, Justin went. 

          He pulled out his tape measure and measured where he wanted Wayne to put the first barrier. 

          I watched as they smoothly and efficiently set all the barriers in place. 

          Justin went to help somewhere else and Wayne was left by himself to lift the giant sacks down to the creek's edge then get off his machine, climb down the bank, and put the sandbags in between the barriers, closing up the big cracks.

          Later, after we left, the whole thing was draped in heavy plastic.

          A shopping trip was on our schedule for the next day. Road pictures?

          This guy was going to fix this old building up and got as far as putting these beams up when they stopped him. It's a historic building and he can't alter it. Over the years it's gotten worse and worse and despite its terrible condition, he can't tear it down. It has to fall down. 

          We always check out what the trucks are hauling. "What's that?" I asked.

          "I don't know. Something for the gas wells, I guess," Mike said.

          There's a full-service gas station in Wysox and they have gas on sale on Wednesdays. Not only was the gas a little cheaper, Mike didn't have to pump it. He thought that was pretty okay.

          Thursday brought freezing rain and fog. We needed to run to town for milk and to the trash company for stickers for our garbage. It's cheaper for us to buy a sticker for three-fifty then to buy the service for thirty dollars a month. The monthly fee gets you four bags of garbage a week, which is a deal if you generate that much garbage, but for Mike and me, we might put out one bag every two weeks.

          I know! I know! More than you wanted to know!

          River Valley, the trash company, is on the way out of town, part way up the mountain, close to the overlook.

          "Can we go on up to the overlook?" I asked Mike. "Maybe I can get some cool fog pictures for my blog.

          Mike is a good husband and happily granted my request.

          I'm not sure about cool fog pictures...

           ... but I did take a few others that I hope you find interesting.

          This one wasn't at the overlook, it's at the edge of the parking lot of the trash company and it's the next picture I took.

          At the bridge that day they were putting these steel pans in. I haven't had a chance to find out why they need them here when they didn't use them at our bridge, but trust me, I'll find out.

          Justin is holding a line that starts the engine and pounds the pan into the creek bed. Dawson, standing in the creek, has the job of unhooking the pan when it's where it needs to be.

          We didn't say long. I wanted to get home and take pictures of the ice coating everything. By the time we got there, the sun was already at work.

          Does this look like the deer have been feeding here?

          The bullies of the bird world. These Blue Jays are fighting over french fries. 

          Why did someone crack their nut open then leave it? I spotted this on my way to the mailbox. Did I interrupt lunch? 

          And then the snow started. It was coming down fast and hard and I needed to go to the post office and mail a package.

          The roads were slick. Mike is a good driver and I wasn't afraid of that. I was afraid someone else would lose it and hit us though.

          The plows were out but couldn't keep up. By the early afternoon, two major roads in our area had been shut down.

          The hunters 'cabin'. I'd asked one of the guys what the structure there under the tree was. You can't tell from my photo but it's stone.

          "What do you think it was?" Dave asked.

          "A spring house?" was my guess.

          "It was an icehouse. They'd cut blocks of ice and store 'em here." 

          The news said we got seven inches but the neighbors thought we got around four.

          Well now. We've covered At the Beginning, The Other Bridge, and Snow and Fog Pictures. Let's get Heavy on My Heart out of the way, shall we?

          I've made a decision to quit running the exercise program at my church. The attendance has been so low for so long that it's mostly been just Miss Rosie and me. My beautiful friend Jody joined us but has to miss a lot because her job keeps her late sometimes. Besides, after three years I've only lost 20 pounds.

          "Why's that, Peg?" you ask.

          Let's just say I've been less than diligent in the other aspects of weight loss and that's in what I eat.

          "So what are you going to do now?" you wonder.

          I'll keep up with my workouts here at home and I'll call Miss Rosie and keep her accountable too. Jody wants to interval run with me come the spring, so that's what we're going to do.

          Honestly, it'll be nice not to have to go out three nights a week. It was just time to shut it down.

          "Will you ever start it up again?" you ask.

          I don't know. I won't say no. You never know what the future will bring.

          ♫Somebody loves me!♪ Somebody loves me♫ Na-na-na-boo-boo! ♫♪I'm loved more than you!♫     

          Not really, but it rhymes. You with boo. But what is true is that somebody loves me and sent me a gift.

          Mike opened the mailbox and there was a package. "What did you order now?" I asked.

          "Nothing. It has your name on it."

          Well, that doesn't mean anything. Half the time Mike does order something he has it sent in my name. I opened the box and there was a beautiful 1937 edition of Fannie Merritt Farmer's cookbook. 

          "Did you order it by accident?" Mike asked.

          "I don't think so. I was looking at books online but not cookbooks." I was looking to see what a complete collection of Frank L. Baum's Wizard of Oz books would cost or a complete set of another childhood favorite, The Borrowers but I didn't order anything.

          I mulled it over and guessed who might've had this sent to me — and I was right. It is somebody who loves me!

          "I guess she was quite famous in her day," this beautiful lady told me when I talked to her. "I thought you might get a kick out of making some of her old-timey recipes."

          I'll tell you what. There's no better reading than a good cookbook! I spent at least an hour flipping through it that first day and I've picked it up several more times since then too. I think I'll pass on Calf's Brain Fritters. I'm not too sure about Walnut Catsup or Deviled Bones. I can probably handle her Fried Chicken recipe.

         Cut chicken in pieces for serving and fry in pork fat or butter. Serve with Brown Gravy.

          I cruised the potato section pretty thoroughly though. I love potatoes and I'm gonna make her white sauce and pour it over scalloped potatoes. Not a specific recipe of hers but it should work.      

          And I think I'll try her Eggs A La Goldenrod too! I have no idea what effect ricing the egg yolks will have on the flavor but I'm interested in finding out.

          I haven't even spent much time in the dessert section but that's because I'm saving that for when I have time to sit and really savor the recipes.

          "Peg, who's Fannie Merritt Farmer?" I know you wanna know.

          I'm so glad you asked! This lady is fascinating. Fannie was a feisty redhead who never married at a time when it was thought that women should stay home and be wives and mothers. We're talking the mid to late eighteen hundreds here. And she made a career for herself too.

          When she was thirteen she had a stroke that left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for years. That's when she got interested in cooking. She did recover but always walked with a limp after that. 

          Fannie graduated from the Boston Cooking School when she was 32 years old and became an assistant director that year. Five years later she became the director. About eight years later in 1902 she left the Boston Cooking School and started her own school. The goal of her school was to teach housewives and nurses how to cook whereas the Boston Cooking School had been teaching people how to teach cooking.

          "Nurses?" you query.

          I thought that might pique your interest. Fannie was so strongly convicted of the importance of proper food for the sick and convalescents that she wrote a cookbook on the subject, lectured at Harvard Medical School, and taught diet and nutrition to doctors and nurses. She gave her last lecture ten days before she died at the age of 57.

          Gone were the days of 'butter the size of an egg'. Fannie standardized measuring. Not in that one-cup equals eight ounces but in how a cup was to be measured. She felt that if you did it the same way all the time then you would get the same results all the time.

          Fannie published her best-known book, The Boston Cooking School Cookbook in 1896. The book's publisher did not predict good sales and made Fannie foot the bill for publishing. As a result, she kept the full copyright and became wealthy. Yeah. I bet the publisher kicked his butt for years after that mistake! More than a hundred years later her cookbooks were still being published.

          Other Things...

          I have notes on several other things I wanted to talk to you about but it's getting late and I'm tired and almost out of room. But check this out. My newly found old girlfriend is making cat butt coasters.

          "What are cat butt coasters?" I had to ask.

          Yeah. A picture is worth a thousand words.

          "They're fun to make," she told me.

           

          And let's call this one done!