So…tomorrow is the longest day of sunshine for the year…the solstice I think they call it. And it is also a full moon. Big deal you say? Well, actually it is and not because it happens only once every seventy years or so…no, no…something much more significant to those of us who are hoping to live long enough to see the Indians win the World Series. The last time this phenomenon occurred was 1948. If you don’t know the significance of that year, then you’re not really a deep and abiding fan of The Tribe. It was, for all you neophytes, the last time the Indians won the World Series. And here we are in 2016. The Cavs have broken the spell of no major championships for Cleveland, the Indians are in first place, and it’s happening again…an equinox AND a full moon. Coincidence? Let me know.
It was an exhaustive day. Temperatures in the low nineties and humidity high enough that I was wringing out my shirt like it was a sponge. I was six feet down in a ditch for much of the day trying to get to the bottom of the leaking foundation on our rental house, but the narrowness of the trench and the rocks were making me work for every shovel full I pulled out and threw. I was light headed by noon and after copious water and some lunch, returned to the hole until I received a distress call from the farm.
“There’s a bird in one of the furnaces in the large arena, John,” Gail said.
“And?” I asked. There were hundreds of sparrows and barn swallows flying all over the indoor arena every day of the year. For one of them to fly into one of the five overhead furnaces, currently turned way off, was not unusual.
“I guess the horses are afraid,” she said.
I climbed from the hole, changed back into my farm outfit (digging in shorts which is taboo gear on the farm) and headed for the arena. Locating the offending furnace, I wondered out loud of the necessity of pulling a ladder and disassembling it for the sake of a chirping bird.
“It scares the horses,” I was told by the Equine Manager, wondering again why they weren’t disturbed by the ones chirping next to and all around the furnace as they flew in search of tasty insects…or to annoy me.
I don’t question what scares them too loudly and went about getting the ladder and pulling the bottom from the furnace (it’s suspended in the air way above where horses can run into it) to find that whatever bird had been in there had rediscovered its powers of flight and left through one of about fifty openings to the furnace. I put everything away, notified everyone it had been a successful mission, and returned to my hole.
I continued to feel like crap, but dug on until quitting time. Exhausted and covered in filth, I went back to my shop, grabbed a change of clothes from the Jeep and took a shower. I went home to meet up with Jason and drive ninety minutes to Poland, Ohio where we were to pick up lots of furniture and home accoutrements from my sister. He’s a pack rat and we had to load the truck to the maximum before we could leave.
“I’m tired, hungry and getting angry. Let’s please go!” I said to him and he finally stopped looking for useless trinkets to pack in his truck.
I walked a lot, dug a lot, sweat a lot and didn’t do a workout. I didn’t need to.
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