Reflections - Disappearing Blueberries

Ripening Blueberries

I don’t count blueberries before they ripen. I do drool.

Spring clusters of green berries bring to mind the fresh baked fragrance of blueberry-apple pie, the twangy-sweet taste of blueberry drop cookies, and the dark blue fruit polka-dotting steamy-hot oatmeal.

Drooling and daydreaming don’t get a harvest. It takes work.

Spence taught me to rake needles from under the old pine stand and mound them in donut shapes around the bushes in fall. “You don’t have to weed,” he’d said. Of course I did.

Then, I pulled the rattly garden wagon to the old pine stand. Avoiding bird droppings and tossing twigs, I scratched the leaf rake over the ground. Blue jays scolded from pine boughs. The orange straw released a piney fragrance. It also provided acid soil and discouraged weeds. I mounded it a foot high to be extra discouraging.

On a steamy Thursday in mid June, Spence agreed to help cover our four mature blueberry bushes in the north garden. Their twelve foot square cage had a chicken wire bottom and frame of PVC pipes on top to hold row cover cloth.

An exhaustive search through the basement, cold cellar, and garage turned up the supplies we needed—binder clips, saved reusable cable ties, a new package of row cover cloth, and cloths stored from past years. We lugged the materials outside and dropped them beside the cage. My mouth dropped too. Weeds had found their way through the thick mulch. Covering would have to wait. I fetched garden gloves and a trowel.

Crawling between bushes, I dug dandelions, white root, and thistles.

Outside the cage, Spence pushed the hand mower. It puttered along, choked on a tough bit, and puttered on again.

When the mower silenced, I shouted, “Bring the big shovel.”

He returned and leaned on the shovel. “Why?”

I pointed. “The trowel won’t dig those huge things.”

“Elephant ears.” Spence snuggled the shovel under the leaves, loosened the soil all around, and lifted the giant out. Freeing two more, he reached for my hand. Because he calls me his fragile butterfly, he limits our time outside in hot weather to forty-five minutes. “Time for a water break.” 

Though I wanted to finish weeding and get the cover up, I was sweltering. Sweat soaked my hair and dripped down my forehead. I grabbed his hand and followed him. He drank water—carbonated lime flavored. I gulped rooibos ice tea and trudged back to finish weeding.

The next day Spence lugged the coverings outside, dumped them beside the cage, and brushed his hands together. “It’s your project. Where do you want me?”

“Back there.” I pointed to the corner by the tall spruce tree. Grabbing the end of an old cover cloth, I squeezed between the cage and the spruce branches. They brushed my face and released a sweet-spicy scent. Pulling the cloth along the frame, I realized I’d forgotten the binder clips. Not a problem. Spence would expect me to change my mind. “Come hold this.”

With the breeze helping lift the old and new cloths over the eight foot frame, we clipped them to the back and middle of the frame before he trundled off on his tractor. Being sure not to leave any gaps for birds, I replaced the clips with cable ties. The flapping white cover attracted spiders, bees, and flies. Ignoring them, I slit holes with scissors, stuck the ties through, and secured the cloth to the PVC pipes.

Clouds rolled in. Spence called, “Water break.”

“But the cover isn’t secure and it’s going to storm.”

He motioned toward the house with his head. “It’s a good test. The storm will find weaknesses. You can fix them tomorrow.”

The storm didn’t find any weaknesses. I finished covering and whispered to the berries, “You can ripen as fast as you want now.”

 

North Garden Blueberry Cage

Those words would come back to haunt me.

I managed the six south garden blueberry cages alone. Each had the same design—chicken wire bottoms and PVC frames at the top to hold the row cover cloth. In a forward bend pose on the steamy, ninety degree second day of summer, I pulled out chickweed, ground ivy, and thistles. The wire jabbed my belly, and branches knocked my sun hat off again and again.

The next week I stretched used cloths across the grass to find the least holey. My hand brushed the remains of sticky moth chrysalises. After rubbing the yuck off on the grass, I patched the covers as if piecing a quilt. I hung and secured them, mouthing a clip or tie to wave at honking neighbors. I never knew which neighbor because their vehicles—throwing up dust clouds that drifted to the cages and me—passed faster than I could turn around. 

By June 29, I’d covered all the bushes. Bears, raccoons, and birds would not get another blueberry. The rest were for me—or so I planned. Every other day, I peeked into the cages. 

Finally, on July 10 when milkweed gave off a heavy, sweet scent attracting bees and great spangled fritillary butterflies, ripe blueberries hung from the biggest bush in the north garden. I ran for my picking bucket. Sleigh bells jingling against its sides, I eased the ripe berries off the branches. Plink. Plink. Plink. A dozen berries rolled on the bottom of the gallon bucket. The ripening pace should pick up.

It didn’t.

Two days later no berries had ripened and none on the third day. Even odder, there seemed to be fewer green ones. No berries had fallen onto the straw. No gaps allowed birds to fly in. On the sixteenth, a puny, ripe blueberry dangled among even fewer green ones.

Angry, frustrated, and discouraged, I marched to the great room and shoved the picking bucket between Spence and his computer.

He peered into the bucket. “It’s a blueberry.”

“Yes. One. And the green berries are disappearing as if they’re evaporating.” I hugged the bucket to my chest. “Bugs would have left half-chewed bits.”

Spence put his computer on the coffee table and stood to place calming hands on my shoulders. “It’s been dry. Too dry.” 

I knew that. Spending hours watering tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, Spence had run a five hundred gallon cistern dry so hooked up a hose to the second one.

Spence squeezed my shoulders. “May was wet. The bushes set a lot of fruit. They took back the water to survive.” He took a deep breath. “Metaphorically, the blueberries evaporated.”

His calming voice gave me a little comfort. “But where did the skins go?”

He shrugged. “Dropped into the straw.”

Dig through the pine straw where snakes, mice, and voles lurked in search of shriveled green skins? No need. Spence confirmed my evaporating theory. I retired the picking bucket for the season.

Disgruntled over all the work I’d invested for thirteen blueberries, I delayed removing the covers. Honking continued. Dust drifted. Weeks passed. I imagined neighbors wondering why I left the covers up so long. Embarrassed, I talked myself into removing them at the beginning of August.

Then it rained. I had to wait for the cover cloths to dry.

August 10 dawned blue-sky sunny. Washing the breakfast dishes, I gazed out the kitchen window into the north garden. The fat groundhog—that lived under the old woodshed and seemed impervious to the stinky mounds of used litter-repellent our tabby cats created—grazed on white clover. Goldfinches flitted among drying thistles. A good day to go out. “I’ll take down some blueberry covers today,” I called across the great room to Spence sitting on the sofa, his volunteer desk. “Do you have any garden work?”

“In the south garden.” He put a finger on his clipboard and glanced up. “We can go this afternoon.”

Afternoon came, and Spence stared at his computer screen.

Grabbing two binder clips and two plastic grocery bags, I said, “I’m going to the south garden.”

Spence waved. “I’ll be out soon.”

 

Six-Spotted Fishing Spider

The tall river willow shaded the blueberry cages. Nature provided a comfortable breeze. Using the binder clips, I attached a grocery bag to my left jeans pocket for collecting reusable cable ties and the other bag to my right pocket for binder clips. Looking clownish, I reached for a tie. The tie had a box with a tab on the side. Pressing the tab down while pushing the straight piece backwards through the box released the tie for reuse. I squeezed the little levers and pushed ties again and again. Beetles scurried and moths fluttered across the covers. I released all except one stubborn tie when I spied a few green and pink berries clinging to branches.

In August?

We’d never had blueberries in August. Leaving the cloth dangling, I checked the other bushes. No berries on four. The fifth had some and two were ripe! I picked them, jogged inside, and held my hand under Spence’s nose.

He leaned back. “Huh. We had rain.” He shook his head. “But who heard of blueberries ripening in August?”

Back outside, my index fingers and thumbs ached from pressing the release on cable ties. I bravely swept earwigs, caterpillars, and spiders off the covers. I folded them for next year—if I tried for another crop. With one cover left to remove, the tip of my index finger throbbed. I trudged inside. “Spence, may I cut the stubborn cable ties that won’t come apart?”

“Yes.” He stopped typing. “But I’ll be out soon.”

I took the scissors. After uncovering the last bush, I used every binder clip I'd collected to reattach the first cage’s cloth. Since Spence hadn’t come out to release the stubborn ties, I cut them and put the materials away.

When I joined Spence in the great room, he shut his computer lid and said, “The work just wouldn’t end.”

Ditto for taking care of berries.

Three days later, wild turkeys clucked in the woods. I tangoed with the spruce tree and plucked beetles off the row cloth to uncover the north garden blueberries. A six-spotted fishing spider, the size of a half dollar, nestled between folds by the cage door. She clutched an egg sack bigger than her abdomen. Freeing cable ties around her, I hoped she would move.

She didn’t.

I lifted the cloth to expose her.

She scurried further into the folds.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I took her photo.

Spence walked past and peered over my shoulder. “You’re annoying her.”

I left to finish the other sections. A good choice, I later learned on an internet search, because those spiders bite if people annoy them. And their bites zap like bee or wasp stings.

South garden berries are still ripening a few at a time. I sprinkle one or two on my oatmeal and sigh. 

Spence says, “Wait till next year.” 

I could argue that climate scientists warn conditions will worsen. Our cisterns won’t have enough water for the garden and blueberries. All the work we put into the harvest isn’t worth the pitiful outcome. I might as well burn the cover cloths and let the birds eat the green berries.

Or I could be hopeful. Perhaps I could cover and water one or two of the most productive bushes and leave the others exposed for the critters to enjoy.

I don’t count blueberries before they ripen. I do expect more than a handful.

Green Blueberries

 

 Reflections - The Cats Go Green 

Ande and the Food-Poop Cycle

You can leave a cat green litter, but you can’t make him pee.

As an experiment, Spence brought home cat litter called Yesterday's News. The litter was green in two ways. Hard, green pellets replaced the familiar dusty, gray clay. Clay doesn’t biodegrade. The recycled paper would benefit landfills and Wells Wood where Spence spreads used litter as groundhog deterrent. Since we’d gone green with solar panels, geothermal energy, and a hybrid pickup, I agreed to Spence’s experiment.

The cats didn’t.

“What if they won’t use it?” I stared at our three tabby cats napping innocently on chairs in the great room.

Spence raised his arms over his head. “It’s an experiment.”

At least he didn’t say “Duh” or “Don’t worry.”

I did worry. Ande, Rills, and Gilbert might protest. They could poop beside the litter boxes. Their uncovered poop smells ripe, like a combination of feces and a man’s underarm after vigorous exercise. Plus, they could get into peeing contests and mark every corner of the log house creating an annoying ammonia stench. More was at stake than a green environment. If the experiment soured, my complexion, not the environment, would be green while I scrubbed their nasty deposits. Call me crazy, I still agreed to the experiment.

On Saturday, March 19, the cat brothers, exhausted after an extensive three floor chase, curled on the great room sofa with Spence for morning naps. Spence and Ande snored. I tiptoed to the bathroom. After scooping poop and clumps of pee-saturated clay, I scattered a handful of Yesterday’s News on top of the clay and waited.

The cats voted with their paws using other litter boxes—one in the basement, two in the guest room, and another in the loft. Finally, eleven days later, a cat peed in the clay sprinkled with paper pellets. I would have hugged him if I knew which cat.

The beginning of April, I added a fistful of recycled paper to a litter box in the guest room. Within the next two weeks, the cats made deposits in all five of the boxes twice. Carrying an old coffee bag full of droppings down the hall in one hand, I pumped the other fist and yelled, “Five for five,” like a basketball announcer celebrating a three-point shooter’s success. The fellas ignored my performance.

Though the cats only used the litter boxes with paper pellets on three days, they hadn’t left any stinky protests. They passed my preliminary trial. I read the directions in preparation to start the experiment.

1st  Week: ⅓ paper and ⅔ clay

2nd Week: ⅔ paper and ⅓ clay

3rd Week: 100% paper

Obviously, the writer didn't have three male cats using five litter boxes. I could adapt. I would substitute months for weeks. On a Monday afternoon in mid April, I toted my cleaning supplies to the first floor bathroom because it had a tile floor which I could mop after the job was complete. Then I lugged the basement litter box upstairs. I dumped and scraped the disgusting dregs into an empty fifteen and a half pound food bag before scrubbing the box clean.

The cats parading past the bathroom door recognized those steps.

I measured three quarts of recycled paper pellets and six of clay into the box. While I mixed them, Ande sniffed the recycled paper. Rills, eyes bulging, watched from the doorway. Gilbert stretched his legs over and around the clutter—the paper pellets, the clay litter, a bucket of scrub water, rags, deodorizer, the scoop, and the empty quart container. I returned the clean litter box to the basement and repeated the process with the other four boxes.

Usually Rills dashes downstairs to make a deposit before his brothers. He didn’t. He chased them around the first floor instead. Working off nervous energy?

No healthy cats had their waste functions scrutinized so closely. “Four for five” and “five for five” I called to Spence. 

Without looking up from his computer he mumbled, “That’s nice, dear.”

By mid May, I began stage two.

Ande and Rills attended the cleaning transition. Sitting straight backed on his haunches, Ande blocked the doorway. His eyes followed my scrubbing hand. Rills sniffed the air.

I’d done the math. If I followed the three step instructions, I would have left over clay. So, this time, I measured half and half, mixed, then distributed the litter boxes. I hoped Rills would dash for a clean box.

He dashed for the great room and sat beside the empty food bowls. The cat fountain growled—low water. I poured crunches into the food bowls and water into the fountain. Ande and Rills chomped and drank. Gilbert waited a safe distance for his turn. 

“I want you guys to poop in your boxes.” I sat with my laptop, typed some notes, and heard scratching in the guest room.

Ande lapped at the fountain. Gilbert crouched by a food bowl. A second later Rills pranced down the hall.

“Good boy, Rills!”

But three days passed, and I only found enough poop for one cat. A week later I didn’t find any. Were they constipated or mounting a protest? Crouching and using my teacher's voice, I told the cats, “Put your poopy in the boxes or no more chicken.”

Rills, who gobbled the chicken pieces Spence gave the fellas each morning, searched my face with worried eyes.

“Don’t threaten the boys,” Spence said. “They’re cats. They’re not bad.”

“They probably didn’t understand my words,” I lied. 

Rills understood chicken.

The next day, I cleaned the house from loft to basement pulling out every piece of furniture a cat could get under or behind. No brown dollops. No yellow puddles. Lots of dusty clumps of cat-hair. The cats didn’t act sick. Could they hold poop in protest?

The problem had worked itself out by the next morning. The litter boxes were full of it, so to speak. I relaxed.

Rills never missed his morning chicken.

Mid June, when I mixed two-thirds recycled paper and one-third clay, no cats bothered to watch.

 

Recycled Paper Litter

So, in July, the end of the experiment, I scrubbed a litter box and filled it with Yesterday’s News. Before a cat marred the green pellets’ Zen-like texture, I pulled out my cell phone to take a couple of photos. The beep of an incoming email from my friend Diana distracted me. I sat cross-legged on the tile, considered her suggestion for making me a co-author of her Medical Insider column about transgender youth, then concentrated on tapping the screen’s small alphabet letters with my index finger.

Ande trotted around me, jumped into the litter box, and sat with his back to me. He let loose a stream—the perfect picture proving our cats had accommodated.

With the camera in hand, I debated. Wouldn’t I be disrespecting his privacy? While I dithered, he scratched and scampered away. I didn’t need the picture. The experiment for exchanging materials to capture stinky deposits had worked.

On cats.

Would the new stuff still deter groundhogs?

Spence lugged the old cat food bags where I’d stashed the used litter to his tractor bucket and drove them to a wild blackberry patch near the south garden. I ran ahead of the tractor taking his photo as he drove. 

He scouted for the entrance and exit holes of the groundhog burrow then dumped droppings in, mounding the holes closed with the recycled paper—now gray, swollen, and reeking of cat pee. “When they dig out,” Spence clawed the air with his hands, “The pellets will—”

“Roll further into the burrow.” I giggled. 

“Or when they dig in.” Spence scanned the field. 

I doubted that. Groundhogs are fastidious housekeepers. A determined groundhog shoves and sweeps the smelly clay deposits aside. But Spence increased the size of the mounds he dumps so the garden thieves would move away. 

And paper litter requires a different technique than clay—brush away dry pellets to locate the dark wet ones. Ease the scoop underneath. Gently lift. A groundhog’s pawing would break the smelly papers, not remove them.

Our groundhogs didn’t attempt the task.

While I was scrubbing a cast iron skillet a few days later, Spence opened the front door and lifted Rills to his shoulder. “The groundhogs really hate it.”

“Hate what?” I didn’t imagine he meant the skillet.

“The new litter.” He put Rills down. “There are no signs the groundhogs went back.”

“Woo-hoo!” I waved the skillet—dripping suds on the floor—and waltzed around the kitchen table. Our experiment worked. The cats adapted to the green pellets. The groundhogs moved away. We’d ratcheted our green living up another notch.

And cleaning the new litter couldn’t be easier. Tip the box and the dregs slide out. Wipe the surface with a damp rag and refill. No scrubbing necessary.

But Yesterday’s News is yesterday’s news. Literally.

With the experiment concluded, I searched for a link to Yesterday’s News in case curious readers wanted more information. My heart dropped to my toes. 

Article headlines included “Yesterday’s News Discontinued” and “40 people in Springfield will lose their jobs when cat litter factory closes in June.” Purina argued demand for the product had lowered and businesses going digital created less paper waste. The company stopped manufacturing in April and put the factory up for sale two months later.

Yikes!

Spence and I will scramble for an alternative to the alternative litter he discovered this spring. We’re not reverting to clay.

The cats have gone green.

Spence Filling The Groundhog Hole with Used Litter

 

 Reflections - A Three Hundred Ninety Day Wait to Pick Up the Pickup

Maverick

 

Spence’s shivery whisper shocked me. On Friday the thirteenth of May, he walked across the great room and turned his laptop screen toward me. “You’ve got to see this.”

Welcoming a break from folding his laundered tank tops, I stared at a line graph. Line graphs never had that reverent effect on him before. “Yeah?”

“It’s from Ford. Our Maverick’s in production.” Cradling the computer as if it were his baby truck emerging inside the plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, Spence eased to the great room and emailed a screenshot to the family.

Three hundred twenty-four days after driving to Titusville Ford in Guys Mills, I’d given up hearing about the Maverick, the only affordable small hybrid pickup. Spence had wanted a truck with better gas mileage for the environment. He needed a truck before his old one died or failed Pennsylvania’s inspection.

That was June 23, 2021. Our dealer Jason had told us to expect the Maverick by fall. Spence planned for September. I cautioned Halloween or Thanksgiving. 

Every night he read the Maverick Truck Club website. He shared news of EcoBoost engines getting built rather than the hybrid we’d ordered because EPA hadn’t rated gas mileage on the hybrid yet. Spence also related stories from men. “My truck died. I’m riding my bike to work. My order better come before it snows.”

Thursdays, Spence checked his email for news from Ford. After the email confirming his order, no others arrived.

Spence called Jason and Ford Customer Service monthly. Jason’s news on October 25 made Spence’s face light up as if his first tomato seedling had sprouted. “Our Maverick’s listed at priority code two.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The truck will get a build date soon.” He scooped Rills off the sofa, chanted, “We’re getting a new truck,” and waltzed his buddy around the great room.

Ford defined “soon” differently than we did.

The Maverick Truck Club ran rampant with theories for the extended supply chain delays on hybrid engines, chips, and spray-in bedliners. Our order needed all of those. Folks in the club debated whether to drop spray-in bedliners off their orders. 

“Do it! You’ll get built faster.” 

“No, man. Make a change and they cancel your order.”

“Not if the dealer does it.”

During Spence’s late November dealer check in call, Jason said, “The spray-in bedliner is holding up the order. You should take it off.” 

Spence slammed his fist against the sofa. “Take it off.”

December, January, and February passed with no word. The folks on the Maverick Truck Club argued that the  first order taken should be the first order built. Ford agreed, verbally, but gave priority to large, interstate dealerships. Profit not principle ruled.

Finally, on March 28, 2022, customer service gave Spence a VIN number. The mix of nine digits and eight letters made for boring reading but were vital. They meant our Maverick had been scheduled for production and Spence could check the order online at the Vehicle Tracker using that number anytime night or day.

Exciting, except the Vehicle Tracker malfunctioned more frequently than it worked. Spence upped his checks with customer service to every other week then weekly. In late April, a clueless young woman said, “It says your order is confirmed. I bet you’re excited about your new truck.” 

“Grrrrr. I’ve been waiting since June twenty-third.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Spence suffered through several more cheerful customer service responses and useless answers from Jason—“I haven’t heard . . . I don’t know . . . Ford isn’t telling me . . .”

Considering all Spence had gone through checking his Maverick order from June 2021 through May 2022, his shivery whisper made sense. He told anyone who would listen about his Maverick’s build date. “It would happen on Friday the thirteenth.” 

Another Friday, May 27, the Vehicle Tracker proclaimed the Maverick built and provided a link to view the window sticker. Gazing at each listed accessory, Spence grinned jack-o’-lantern wide. 

 

Maverick Bed Extender

Within a week the tracker half filled the dot for “shipped to dealer.” Translation: the Maverick left the factory on June 1 for its train ride north. Only one more circle remained on the line graph, “final preparation.”

Stepping sprightly on our health walks, Spence speculated about getting his Maverick by Father’s Day. I limped—my knee still aching from our Presque Isle adventures—gawked at tiger swallowtails flitting between blackberry blossoms, and swatted bugs which were determined to dive bomb my face. Spence made a decision. “First year model. Built on a Friday. I’m keeping the old truck for when the new truck breaks down.” 

His 2008 Chevy pickup has over three hundred eighteen thousand miles. Not the most reliable vehicle. For example, with gas prices soaring to $5.10 a gallon, he filled the old guzzler’s tank and headed to Cleveland on June 9. He watched for Mavericks along the way. Early that afternoon the house phone rang. Spence’s resigned voice said, “Coming down route three twenty-two toward Chagrin River, all the lights on the dashboard flashed. I crossed the river. The engine ran but missed and lost power. I put my flashers on and inched up the hill. I turned off at the first right. Also uphill. The engine died. Everything electrical shut off.”

He waited two hours for the tow truck that drove him and the Chevy eighty-three miles back to our mechanic Matt’s. A thousand dollar repair bill got the old Chevy roadworthy, but Matt said, “It won’t pass inspection again.” If Spence feels better keeping that old truck for a spare, fine with me. I prefer taking my chances with the new Maverick.

On June 18, 2022, we both sighed relief because customer service told Spence the Maverick arrived in Lordstown, Ohio on June 17. The pickup waited on a ramp for the Brothers Auto Transport to drive it the last fifty miles to Titusville, where the dealership had moved since we’d made our order. Surely, we would have the Maverick by the Fourth of July.

Spence checked the Vehicle Tracker twice a day to see if the Maverick had arrived at Titusville Ford. The dot stayed on “In Transit.”

He called Ford Customer Relations every second or third day to check. Dates improved—July 18, between June 25 and July 7, July 5—until his fourth call.

“July eighteenth! I’ve been waiting since June twenty-third, twenty twenty-one,” he shouted. His face and neck turned red behind his beard. “My truck is fifty miles away just sitting on a ramp.”

Claws scritch-scratching against the wood floors, the tabby cats fled the great room and pounded up the metal stairs. 

Worrying about Spence’s blood pressure, I sat beside him and patted his knee. 

The representative must have said something calming because the red drained from Spence’s face. He said, “Okay” and “I’ll try” before hanging up.

Scribbling notes on his clipboard, Spence asked, “What’s the name of the towing company?” He pointed northwest. “They towed the Subaru.”

“Leonard’s.” Why did he need a towing company for a truck we didn’t have?

“Right. The guy says we can ask the dealer to ask Ford to permit us to hire a tow truck to deliver our Maverick.” Spence dialed Jason and later, with much merriment, relayed their conversation.

S: Jason, this is Spencer Wells. The Maverick is in a parking lot in the Lordstown, Ohio train yard. Why not run over this afternoon and pick it up?

J: Ford won’t let me do that.

S: Jason, the guy at Ford Customer Relations suggested it.

J: I never heard of such a thing.

S: Just call your Ford Regional Manager and suggest it.

J: She's already done what she could. She put your truck on the “hot list” for the next auto hauler coming this direction.

S: Look, Jason. Leonard's Towing is six miles from my house. He has a flatbed. You get the pick up approved. I'll pay Leonard's to go pick it up and deliver it to you.

J: Okay, I’ll ask.

While Spence waited for the answer, he checked Ford Truck Club. Customer relations representatives had suggested the idea to many members. All were denied. 

 

Spence Checking for Maverick News

Jason’s answer, of course, was no. “The transport company calls me twenty-four to forty-eight hours before delivery. I’ll call you.”

Spence maintained his routine of reading Maverick Truck Club, calling Ford Customer Relations, and calling Jason. He added a fourth check. After a nap, a shower, a trip outside to water his tomatoes, or an all day excursion to volunteer for lead safe housing in Cleveland, he asked, “Did Jason call?” I couldn’t label his condition as wait-by-the-phone, but Spence certainly had anxious-to-hear syndrome. 

His call anticipation peaked with over a dozen “Did Jason call” per day the evening of July 5 when staring at truck club news, yet again, he muttered, “It’s good I read this every night so I don’t go over there and kill him.”

I could connect that to a certain dealership and dealer, but Spence meant he found comfort being in a group where everyone suffered waiting weeks and weeks for their Mavericks to be transported from train yards to dealers. The fellas talked each other down from using wire clippers to liberate their Mavericks on dark nights. Add transport drivers to the list of shortages in America holding up new vehicle deliveries.

A week later, Spence gave up. He stopped calling customer relations. He stopped checking the Vehicle Tracker. He didn’t call the Ford dealer. “It will happen when it happens.” His blood pressure benefited, but his spirits drooped. At least he still read the truck club news nightly and, every time he stepped inside the front door, he asked, “Did Jason call?”

Jason never called.

But Friday, July 15, he sent Spence an email. “Looks like it should be here sometime today or tomorrow. So we should be able to do everything Monday.”

I drove Spence to Titusville in our Subaru Crosstrek on Monday, July 18. There, in front of the building, sat the shiny, new hot pepper red Maverick. 

As if stating we needed to write celery seed on the shopping list, Spence said, “That’s our Maverick.”

I, who hadn’t expected to get emotional, jumped out of the car—leaving the driver’s door hanging open for Spence to shut—and focused my cell phone camera on the solid iteration of the elusive Maverick Spence had dreamed of for the last thirteen months. I hit the round white button on the screen. The phone made a tinny, crackly-snap. “Get in there, Spence.” 

He strode beside his pickup and smiled modestly while I took more photos. “Come on. Jason’s waiting.”

Grinning as wide as the Maverick’s front grill, Jason shook our hands and slid paperwork across his desk. In the last year, Titusville Ford had sold four Mavericks before ours, but all had EcoBoost engines. “Yours is the first hybrid. All the other hybrid orders will have to wait for twenty twenty-three models.” 

I raised my eyebrows at Spence. Being a truck club reader, that news didn’t surprise him.

Papers signed, the three of us walked through the showroom past a shiny white Fusion and a huge blue F150. 

A woman jumped up, waved her cell phone, and shouted, “Wait!” She lifted a three foot cardboard key off her desk. “Do you mind if I take your picture beside your new truck with this? I want to post it on our Facebook page to prove people actually do get Mavericks.”

After photos, Jason oriented us to the features of the Maverick—all new to me, a few to Spence. I admired the gray denim seats trimmed with orange stitching, the ample storage under the back seats, and the nifty bed extender. I almost blurted, well worth the wait, but restrained myself.

Then we set off. Spence drove the Maverick. I followed in the Crosstrek.

Clouds cleared. Sunshine graced Spence’s first drive. We crossed Oil Creek and climbed a winding, wooded hill. I’m used to following him at a stodgy, old-man pace. Not this time. I pressed my foot against the floor. After three hundred ninety days waiting to pick up his pickup, Spence zoomed.

 

Spence, Janet, and Maverick