Reflections on the Sixth Week of Spring

   Wednesday Spence lifted his laptop off his legs, moseyed over to the garage basement, and fired up the Mahindra tractor. With brush hog attached, he drove out of the garage and headed uphill for mowing. A ten ton pile of gravel in the old driveway surprised him.

    Spence had ordered size 2B2 crushed gravel from our neighbor Tom, who runs a small hauling and excavation business. Had Tom delivered the gravel Tuesday while Spence was in Cleveland painting the laundry room floor and I was inside the log house working on my quilt show story?

  When Spence finished mowing, he detached the brush hog and headed for the gravel pile.

  I grabbed my camera. 

   He scooped a bucketful of gravel, hauled it to the garage driveway, and dumped it. Spence used the back side of the tractor bucket to pull stones level–a technique he'd perfected from plowing snow. After a few loads, he took my camera, handed me the ear protectors, and waved me onto the tractor seat. “I want to get photos for your children,” he said. 

     Spence stood quietly while I experimented with the joy stick to figure out right angled the bucket up, left angled it down, forward lowered the bucket, and back raised it. 

     I was ready.  

     With the bucket angled down, I drove it into the gravel pile then pushed the joy stick forward. Oops. The bucket lowered, and the tractor's front wheels lifted off the ground.

   Spence hid a laugh behind his hand.

   I backed up and tried again. With the bucket angled down, I drove into the pile. I moved the joy stick right to angle the bucket up, then pulled the lever back to raise the bucket.  

   All four wheels stayed grounded.  

   I backed out of the old driveway. 

   Spence shouted, "Give it more gas. You've got a heavy load." 

   I pulled the gas lever from turtle to rabbit. 

   The engine revved. 

   Spence nodded. 

   I trundled over to the garage driveway and dumped the load. Not having plowed snow, I leaned over the side to monitor the bucket leveling the stones. 

   Spence took the ear protectors and handed me the camera. He spread more gravel in the garage driveway then dumped stones at the end of the deck ramp, by the porch steps, and along the tractor path to the basement garage. Plenty of gravel remained. “I'll use it to firm up tractor paths in the woods and build a drainage line in the south garden,” he said. 

   That evening, we drove the truck down Creek Road to pay Tom. He said he'd delivered the gravel Tuesday afternoon.

    I'd probably heard his Chevy dump truck with dual back wheels but assumed it was a logging truck. Amish loggers had been cutting trees a half mile up the road. Truck after truck turned around in the gas well driveway across the road when they came to haul the mill logs away. "But wouldn't I have heard the stones dumping?” I asked Tom. 

   He shook his head. “It only makes a swish. You'd miss it with the door and windows closed.” 

   Thursday was my volunteer morning at the Learning Center. I backed the Crosstrek out of the garage. Instead of a jolt when the back tires dropped two inches off the cement floor to hard packed dirt, the tires rolled onto cushy, loose gravel.

   Another surprise.