Reflections on the Fourth Week of Summer – An Old Man, a Barn Quilt Block, and a Ladder

Ohio Star Barn Quilt Block with Kittens

After weeks of painting an Ohio Star  section by section then touching up and re-touching up missed spots, my barn quilt block dried―ready for mounting. The couple, who’d taught me how to make the block at the Scrubgrass Grange in Emlenton, Pennsylvania, said to mount the block where passing vehicles could see it. That meant above the loft window on our log house.

Spence volunteered. “I can hang it.”

Imagining him on a ladder near the roof’s peak made my stomach churn. At his age, I wanted his feet planted firmly on garden soil―not twenty feet in the air above the front yard.

Friday Gerry, our chimney sweep, came to clean the wood stove chimney. Remembering he’d climbed a ladder two years ago to fix the flashing around the chimney, I decided to ask him.

Gerry put away his vacuum’s brush attachments and settled into the log chair near the front door.

Ande, our outgoing kitten, jumped onto the stranger’s lap.

Gerry petted Ande and waited for me to write a check.

Signing my name, I tore the check from the book. “Are you good at climbing ladders?”

He stopped petting Ande and jerked his head toward me. Shock etched his face and light shone through his swarthy complexion like the full moon illuminating a country-dark sky.

“I want the barn quilt block hung above the loft window.” I pointed to the sliding glass door where I’d propped the Ohio Star block. I’d made an Ohio Star because stars hung on many barns near Wells Wood, and I’d painted the center yellow to symbolize welcome like a yellow center in a traditional log cabin quilt block.

Spence leaned back on the sofa, curled his bare toes over the edge of the coffee table, and interrupted the uncomfortable silence. “She thinks I’m too old to get up on a ladder. But I can do it.”

Gerry exhaled fluffing his bushy, black mustache. “I’m getting old too.” He rubbed his right thigh that he’d injured on a job a couple of days earlier. Taking the check from me, he wrote a receipt on the end table.

When Gerry left, Spence stretched out on the sofa. Ande and his brothers, who’d stayed in the bedroom while the noisy vacuum cleaned, piled onto Spence. The four fellas napped.

I made a resolution to check the Area Shopper for a general contractor who climbed ladders.

An hour later, while I matched corners to attach log cabin quilt blocks, the vroom-aroom-aroom of Spence’s tractor floated in through the loft window. Next came a clank-clank-clunk. Spence must have driven his forty-pound extension ladder to the front yard and be unfolding the ladder to its twenty-two foot length.

Hustling down the steps, I grabbed my camera, stepped onto the porch, and squirmed into my bug repellent clothes. By the time I jogged to the front yard, Spence held the middle of the ladder and muscled it over his head toward the log house.

The ladder stopped half way up and tilted back down.

Spence stepped to the side.

The ladder crashed to the ground.

“Stay by the tractor,” he called and grabbed the ladder.

“I want to hold the bottom steady for you.” I stepped half way to the tractor.

“No need. The ladder’s already fallen twice. I don’t want it falling on you.”

Maybe I could find a contractor with a bucket truck.

His next effort positioned the top of the ladder beside the loft window.

“Don’t you want the ladder on the window so you can reach over it?” I squinted into the hazy sky and edged into the house’s cool shade.

“No.” He grabbed the sides on the ladder and stepped on the first rung. “The ladder would break the glass.”

Spence Climbing the Ladder

He lifted one foot to the next rung then brought the other foot beside it. The aluminum ladder swayed toward the house and swung back. Step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing all the way up to the forth rung from the top. Spence reached to the window frame, looked at the peak of the roof, and stepped-swayed-swung back down.

With his last step onto the grassy lawn, I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I’d held. “The ladder’s too short, right?” My barn quilt block wouldn’t get mounted, but Spence would be safe.

“No.” He walked to the tractor and fetched a measuring tape and marker. “I can do it.”

Stuffing the measuring tape into his jeans pocket and clipping the marker to his shirt, he grabbed both sides of the ladder and climbed again.

I tilted my head to watch him. He would need at least five hands for this job. A pair to hold the block in place―ideally one or two logs above the window frame―another pair to hold the screws and drill, and one hand to hold the ladder so I didn’t faint.

Spence pushed his abdomen into the ladder, extended the tape measure, and marked the center of the wood frame above the window. Stowing his tools, he stepped-swayed-swung down.

When he reached the ground, I said, “How are you going to hold the block and get the screws in?” He would have to hire someone.

“Easy. Follow me.”

On his porch workbench, he measured the block. The bizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of Spence’s drill destroyed a chickadee’s hey sweetie song. Dust flew and holes, as thin as angel hair pasta, formed in the center of the block’s top and bottom. Changing the bit on his drill, he bizz-bizzed the screws in a fraction of an inch. Grinning, he marched out front with the barn block in one hand and the drill in the other.

He couldn’t carry the drill and block up the ladder at the same time. He would come to his senses and say we needed help.

He didn’t.

He laid the drill on the tractor seat and fetched a Phillips screwdriver from the tractor’s tool bag. Stuffing the screwdriver into a pocket, he held the block in one hand and the ladder with the other. Step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing he climbed.

Sheesh.

At the top, he pressed his abdomen into the ladder again and used both hands to position the block on the window frame.

I could live with that position. No need to put it a log or two above the window and risk Spence losing his balance and . . .

Spence Securing the Top with a Phillips Screwdriver

Spence reached into his pocket and pulled out the screwdriver. He stretched his arm toward the lower screw. Boink. The screw driver angled off the screw. Boink. Boink. After what seemed like hours but must have been minutes of boink-boink-boinking, he pocketed the screwdriver.

Sniffing back tears and swallowing screams, I watched him step-sway-swing back to the ground. Double sheesh. “It’s up. Your safe. Thank you.”

He exchanged the screwdriver for the drill. “No.” And he mounted the ladder a fourth time.

Clutching my camera to my chest, I wished I’d never painted the barn quilt block.

Step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing, step-sway-swing he climbed holding the ladder with one hand and the drill in the other. Sweat saturated his light weight shirt. He leaned toward the painted quilt block.

I closed my eyes.

Bizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

An eternity later he stepped, swayed, swung to the ground. Panting―from the heat and the exertion―he passed me and set the drill on the tractor seat.

The two by two foot quilt block, that looked large while I’d painted, looked small under the peak of the house. No matter. The block hung in view of passing vehicles and Spence hadn’t fallen.

After guzzling cold carbonated water and taking a second nap, Spence drove his tractor to the garage and came back to the house. “The block looks good up there.” He snapped the lid off another can of carbonated water. “I would have bought a longer ladder.” He took a long sip. “But you would have vetoed that.”

Right. Long before he’d purchased his longer ladder, I would have found a ladder climbing contractor to risk his or her neck hanging the barn quilt block.

Ohio Star Barn Quilt Block in Place