Saturday, June 5, 2010

Jack and His Kubota

When Edward and I bought The School from John McQueen a decade ago, we became the custodians of a thousand trees. City kids that we were, we failed to supervise them, and, in the passing years, those trees became the masters of our long views. Thanks to our neighbor, Minister Dan, and his chain saw, we have recently gained more light and space.


Yesterday Dan's friend, Excavator Jack, made quick work of the stumps and brush, while we stood around, not getting poison ivy and sore backs. At 76, he is quite the agile and opinionated machine operator, and we were impressed by his turns-on-a-dime.

This morning we do not feel so enclosed by brush and trees, but the chipmunks are  outraged and letting us hear about it.

3 comments:

  1. Your property looks georgous. Whate state do you live in? Please let me know when you come West again! Marian

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  2. Marian, I was answering your questions about our place in Southwest Lower Michigan, north of South Bend, IN just as a crack of lightning made everything jump --- Edward, me, the lights, and, of course, the computers. So that was that, as we spent the next hours under a tornado warning -- flashlights and a path to the school's lower level at the ready.

    Our place was built in 1931, a three-teacher school, sited on 3-1/2 acres of former farmland. Once a vast prairie, this land was lived on by the Pottawatamies until settlers from the east claimed it, plundered & wrecked the burial mounds, and began farming and timbering.

    It is a wonderful place in which to live and work, with chalkboards, terrazzo floors, cloak rooms, high ceilings, and echoes of teachers and children.

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