Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Winter Insulator Hunt. Part 1.
Hi everyone! It has been a while since I had a story with my dad and I, so thought it was about time to do another one. This story goes back a few years when my dad and I enjoyed collecting insulators. Just in case you don’t know what insulators are, I’m including pictures. They used to hold the wires for phones, telegraph and electricity. Mostly they use cables now so insulators are not used much anymore.
Now, most of our trips out looking for insulators were in the spring and fall when it was easy to find them on the ground. As insulators were used less and less, they would go along and take them down and just toss them off into the trees, or sometimes into the lakes if one was close by. Dad and I had permission to remove unused insulators from the bottom crossarm on the pole, since there were no wires in the way. That was great, but most poles were too tall to get at them anyway.
But there was an area where we could almost get at them, just not quite. So this one January day dad came up with this idea of going after those insulators. “In the winter?”, I asked. “Sure,” he said, “the snow is deep and if we use snowshoes we can reach those insulators.” “It’s cold,” said I. “Nice winter weather,” was his reply. This was really hard to believe, especially since dad suggested using snowshoes. He was not very good at snowshoeing and usually ended up tripping, a point I brought up in our conversation.
He mentioned he had been practicing, so it would be fine. Actually, he walked around the yard a bit, just once, which is not really practicing. But we were soon on our way. We drove to the spot, as close as we could anyway. From there we had to walk along the tracks for a while before getting to this wonderful site. It was cold walking along that open area. But we finally arrived at the first hill. “We can just walk across this first part,” said dad, “the wind should have packed the snow in good and hard.”
I did try to suggest using our snowshoes anyway but dad started off so I followed. Dad’s foot broke through at one spot, but it was only a couple of inches deep so he kept going. We made it and then put on our snowshoes for the next part. The snow was about 3 feet deep so the snowshoes were a good idea. We get to the first pole but the insulators were still out of reach. “Well, we may as well go back,” I suggested. “Nonsense,” said dad, “I will bend over and you can stand on my back.”
I took my snowshoes off and climbed up onto dad’s back. It actually worked good. We got the insulators and went to the next pole. It was a bit taller but I could still reach by standing on dad. I would drop the insulators to dad and he would set them on his snowshoes. But he wasn’t quite ready for one insulator and “thump”, it hit him on the head. He groaned and moved, which caused me to lose my balance a bit and I kicked dad on the side of the head, knocking his hat and glasses off into the snow. He groaned more, moved some more and down I went.
Both dad and I ended up in that deep snow. I was completely covered and was wildly pushing snow away from my face. Poor dad was having trouble getting up since he still had his snowshoes on. Our snowshoes were the older wood framed variety and they were quite large, especially dad’s, since he was a rather big man. But it made it hard for him to get up. So once I was on my feet again, I unstrapped his snowshoes so he could get up more easily. However, somehow when I pulled dad’s snowshoe off, his boot came off too and fell into the deep snow.
“My boot!”, yelled dad, “and my glasses!” Guess he wasn’t too worried about his hat, or maybe he didn’t know that fell off too. Although considering his head was full of snow, he should have noticed. “You lost your hat too,” I said, “I’ll look for your glasses.” “No,” said dad, “I’ll do that, just get my boot.” I handed it to him and he started to put it on. “It’s full of snow!” he exclaimed, “why didn’t you dump it out?” “I figured you would do that,” I said and handed him his hat.
He actually found his glasses quite quickly. It’s amazing he didn’t break them more often, the way he kept losing them all the time when we were out together. We decided to move on to the next pole which was lower and maybe stop there for some coffee. But I think I will leave that for part 2 of this story. Dad and I always had fun on these outings and were able to get a good laugh about them afterwards. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2022 Steve McLeod
Solitude For Saturday. #2
Good morning on this chilly Saturday! It is a beautiful morning, some clouds, some blue sky, but the sun is not shining at the moment. There is a bit of wind from the south which will be bringing some milder air with it, mainly for tomorrow. Even today should not be too bad, except the wind will make it feel colder. Even now it feels like -31F (-35C) with that wind blowing. Wind truly does make a big difference in that temperature.
There are dozens of birds out here this morning. It is hard to count those little redpolls, but I think there is around 40 of them now. There is more than 30 each for the pine and evening grosbeaks. I mentioned walking down to the river the other day and showed a couple pictures from that walk. It was absolutely beautiful. There was really no wind on my walk to the river. It was cloudy, calm and quiet. Not a sound as I walked through the trees.
At one spot I stopped because there was a flock of chickadees and nuthatches. So I listened to them and watched as they passed overhead in the trees, constantly looking for food in the bark as they went. And they were talking to each other the whole time. This was a true country pleasure. I kept walking along into more silence with only me making a sound. I stopped again. It was totally quiet. Surrounded by tall pines it was like walking through a tunnel. It was darker here, like it would be in late afternoon after the sun has set.
I keep walking. It is downhill now, winding through the trees, the last section of the path before arriving at the river. The sun comes out now with thin streaks of light making their way through the trees. There it is. The river has more ice than last year, but still mainly open water along the part where I sit. Hmm, no bench. Someone obviously decided to take it. That was too bad. I like to sit on that bench and rest for awhile, enjoying the beauty, the quietude of the river. The river was fairly calm when I first arrived. Fortunately there is an old stump there, so I brushed off the snow and sat down. Beautiful.
I watched as 2 goldeneye ducks swam around, diving now and then looking for a meal. They do not mind the cold water, and it is cold. The only reason it does not freeze is because of the current in the river. It is a dangerous current, able to pull a strong swimmer underwater very quickly. It does not bother these ducks though. They just swim lazily along. I can hear them each time they dive under. That is the only sound out here.
Beautiful solitude. Watching the water. Listening to the ducks. The beautiful snow covered trees surrounding me. This is a great place to come. Stress, problems, disappear in a place like this. The wind comes up. Not real strong, but blowing off the cold river it makes it feel much colder. I decide it is time to come back home. Well, more about my walk home another time. Thank you for joining me on my walk to the river today. Enjoy your coffee, have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
