Ol’ Rusty
Good morning, all. In honor of those of you who tirelessly tend to your backyard gardens this time of year, I’m offering you an excerpt from a future novella, entitled: The Farmer’s Cul-De-Sac, which will include my memories from life on our small family farm in Hooksett, NH where I grew up. The following testimonial comes from chapter one: The Chores. Go ahead, give your aching back a break and read on.
As the youngest of six children, I used to envy my father and siblings, since they got to perform the more enjoyable jobs on the farm, or so I thought at the time. They could wield a rake or a hoe, and even operate farm equipment like rototillers, trucks, and tractors. It’s funny how we always think the other person’s job is better and somehow easier until we get to perform those tasks ourselves.
Tools like rakes, hoes, and rototillers, for example, are meant for weed control. Fertile farm soil is nirvana for weeds. They easily shoot their greedy roots deep into this prime earth and grow out of control seemingly overnight. And they never stop growing. When I was finally old enough to use the more serious tools of the trade, I would work up a sweat hacking my way around an entire row of crops, reducing thick bands of weeds to piles of wilting greenery by hand as I went. The next morning, I’d discover the weeds had returned, with malevolent smirks on their vile faces, as if saying: “Is that all you got?”
Challenge accepted.
Out would come the ultimate weapon in this never-ending battle, our walk-behind rototiller. Now, my family wasn’t dirt-poor (pun intended), but we didn’t have a lot of money for things like, say, a newer rototiller that actually worked when you wanted it to. No siree, my dad got one from his dad, who had undoubtedly gotten it from the inventor of the machine. It was a huge, rusty thing, with giant levers and wheels waiting to rip your limbs off if you weren’t paying attention.
Starting the brute was an adventure in itself, as it didn’t have one of the more modern pull-start mechanisms, but rather a large pully which I’d wrap a thick length of rope around and yank with all my strength. If I didn’t dislocate my shoulder or suffer whiplash from pulling so hard on the rope, the cantankerous hunk of iron might reward me with a cough from the motor. After a few of these pulls and subsequent coughing (or maybe laughing?), it was all too apparent to me that the old beast was trying to tell me something.
“Kill me. Kill me now. I’m much too old for this. Please, stop turning my crank. It hurts to breathe. I’m begging you.”
My dad, of course, was never far away when I attempted to run any piece of equipment. I always assumed he needed the laugh, but I could be wrong. Whatever the reason that day, he walked over, surveyed the situation, and said, “Boy, go get the container of gas you used to kill the potato bugs with, strain out their carcasses, and pour the fuel into the carburetor. That’ll get Ol’ Rusty here to start!”
Ah, Dad, that eternal optimist. After doing as he instructed, I once again cranked on Rusty’s pully. I flew backward and landed on my butt as a gout of flame erupted from the carburetor. The machine finally hacked like a three-pack-a-day smoker and came to life. That was half the battle. Trying to hold onto the long handles while my entire body vibrated apart was the other half. Undaunted, I began my initial pass through the garden. The rotating metal tines bit into the soft earth with ease, mulching those vexing weeds into so much green fertilizer. A satisfied sneer stretched my face as I reveled in the carnage. “Not so tough now, are you?”
Disaster struck along the second crop row when all that spinning torque met a large, unseen rock beneath the soil. You know that Newton guy, who gave us all those physics laws? Remember the third law: For every action force, there’s an equal and opposite reaction force? Yeah, that one. Rodeo bulls bucking riders off their backs had nothing on Ol’ Rusty when all those spinning metal tines met that piece of granite. Dad observed all this from a few rows over, failing to hide his uncontrollable laughter as I soared through the air, landing in an unscathed swath of weeds.
I still have Ol’ Rusty, who continues to cough and wheeze each time I try to start him up. And I’m now convinced more than ever that he is laughing. I mean, he outlived Dad after all!
Thanks for coming back to learn more of my story. I’d love to read about some of your gardening challenges memories, so feel free to comment here or via email: nhwriter1966@gmail.com
Until next time, whatever you are, unlike Ol’ Rusty, be a good one!
-Dave
