Open Writing

Life is full of surprises. I am amazed how two apparently discrete things can come together unexpectedly to make life more interesting than it is already.

The first ‘thing’ is the affection we have for the trees on our property - we love them. Whether in spring, summer, autumn, or winter, they give us great joy. They also give us firewood when they die on us, or when they become precariously leaning ‘widow makers’ and we have to cut them down in their prime.

The other day, local wag, Pek Schultz, sent me a humorous e-mail article called, "You Might be a Montanan If…." It said – wait – I’ll let you read it for yourself.

* You Might Be A Montanan IF …

* The wind is faster than your truck.

* You own more than four pairs of gloves.

* Every other vehicle is a 4x4.

* The sun goes down and you immediately grab your coat.

* In March, your vehicle is 43% mud.

* You leave your keys in your car and the next morning it's still there.

* You installed your new computer using a Leatherman tool.

* Wolves are naturally free and house cats are on a leash.

* You hear the words "stream" or "brook" pronounced as "crick."

* The elevation exceeds the population of your town.

* Monday night football starts at 7:00, instead of 9:00.

* The jug of milk on your porch is frozen.

* Your vehicle is broken down on the highway and someone stops to help you - and you trust them!

* You can pay for a "Big Mac" with a personal check, or pay the next time you call in.

* There's a Bison/Elk/Deer in the middle of the road.

* You have a gun or rifle but have never shot anyone.

* Your central heating system is fuelled by logs.

* You can see the stars at night.

* People drive 200+ miles to shop at a mall.

* Your grandmother is older than the courthouse.

* You got a set of new snow tires for Valentine's Day.

* Your Bishop shows up Sunday morning wearing quilted cold weather overalls.

* More than half the meat in your freezer is Elk, Buffalo, or Deer.

* The term "wind chill factor" is part of your daily vocabulary.

* The bumper jack in your pickup will lift a house or a centurion tank.

* Your backyard smells like sagebrush (or the nearest feedlot).

* You put on a pair of snowboots to get the morning paper.

* You enjoy a hot chocolate more than liquor.

* A girls' basketball game fills the school gym

* You put the car heater on your list of best friends.

* You slept through the night undisturbed by a siren ... or a train!

* A rodeo is more popular than a Madonna concert.

* Tractors are a normal part of traffic.

* You use your back porch as a freezer from October through May.

* Your telephone book is smaller than most magazines.

* You have made jerky at least once in your life.

* You think it's normal to replace your cracked windshield every spring, when you take off the studded snow tyres.

* Dressing up means wearing a clean flannel shirt and jeans that aren’t too dirty.

* You pronounce Kootenai as "COOT-nee."

* You can tell it was a bad winter because there are only 50 or 60 deer grazing at the edge of town.

* You've seen so many bald eagles you don't even pay attention to them anymore.

* You go around in shorts when the outside temperature soars to 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

* You think a blacktop road (without stripes) that averages 12 feet wide qualifies as a highway.

* You consider someone a neighbour if they only live 6 or 7 miles away
You wave to every car on the highway, whether you're on foot or driving or even sitting on the creek bank with your back to the road.

* You ignore the centre line and drive on whichever part of the road is the smoothest, driest, or feels safest.

* Your idea of Mexican cuisine is Elk Chilli, Bear Tacos, and Deer Burritos.

* You know what "Montana Potatoes" are.

* You've patched your jeans by using duct tape.

* You local Radio Shack (Tandy) sells guns, chainsaws, and satellite dishes.
You love the BIG SKY!

I enjoyed reading it. Mostof the categories have much more than a grain of truth in them, but I demurred about the wind speed being faster than my rig.

We have lived in Montana almost two years and have never seen anything even interesting, let alone outrageous, from the Wind Department, so I made a mental reservation.

No, I didn’t. I downright just disbelieved it. I thought it must refer to those cowboys back east around the ‘Magic City’ of Billings.

That was last Tuesday.

Last Thursday, the wind raised itself around 3 pm. I was outside on the edge of the forest playing with my two close companions, Shep, and Frankie, when I heard the whooshing of the wind. I looked up at the tree tops, some as high as eighty feet, then went inside to get the digital camera.

I took some MPEG files of the swaying trees, marvelling at how quickly the wind got up, and how far down the tops of the trees came! It crossed my mind that maybe my disbelief of what had been claimed for Montana’s wind speed had been overheard by the ‘Wind Department’, and some smart Alec had made up his mind to "show that Englander what Montana wind can do!"

For the next couple of hours, I witnessed trees that once stood tall and stately, thrashing about, singly and in groups, as gusts of seventy miles an hour plus charged up from the south, over Twin Crick, and through the once friendly green giants at whose edge our cabin is nestled, but who now threatened us with destruction.

What had always sheltered us from breezes, now seemed at times to promise imminent death as the long trunks of the pines curled over and headed our way. Now and again I heard an ominous creak, as, first one and then another, of the giant trees was strained more than it had ever been before, and was in danger of cracking under the onslaught of the blast.

As I recorded the stirring scenes – if a tree got me, they would know what had killed me! – Gay drove up in the Explorer. I stopped filming to open her door and help her out, hearing her tell of broken tree branches strewed in the road between the City of Troy, and our spread.

At that very moment, with my camera turned off, a sixty-foot high tree at the south edge of our front meadow cracked straight across some ten feet up, and the remaining fifty feet plunged down, cracking into two as it hit the ground.

We were fortunate it fell straight north, or it could have hit we two intrepid spectators.

After marvelling at our escape, as city folks are wont to do when they see savage nature for the first time close up, we went indoors to rest and to comfort our young Border Collie, Frankie, who was very frightened by the incredible noise the wind made as it blew through the forest. That done, we set about various tasks: Gay tottered off to in the bedroom, I worked at the computer in the living room.

Suddenly, a tremendous "thud!" shook the house. My initial impression was that a runaway train had hit our home. I went to check on Gay, who was smiling.

"Did you hear that?" I asked. A stupid question, because even Beethoven would have heard "That!"

"Yes," she said, "I heard it." Adding, "I said, ‘OK, you have my attention! What now do you want to tell me?’" She’s made of the right stuff is my Gay!

I went outside to see if it was a steam locomotive or a diesel-electric.

It was a Douglas Fir! This was a tree with a single trunk for its first fifteen feet, which then divided into two trunks, each fourteen inches diameter at their bases, and towering upwards for eighty feet. The trunk nearest the house had split off at the fork and had landed across the south gable of the house. There seemed little damage. It wasn’t going anywhere, so I left it overnight.

Next day, I had a brainwave – dangerous things at my age – and decided I would affix a rope around the trunk, as high as I could get it, and tow it off the roof with the Explorer.

That was Plan A. I propped my rickety ladder up and secured the rope. When I got down to move the ladder, I noticed that the garden standpipe, an essential in every American Home, was right where the trunk would fall when it cleared the roof. As it was connected to the main water feed to the house and could be as far down as seven feet, knocking it off would produce a ‘fountain of many waters’ and make the pump run day and night, send the electric bill through the roof, and deprive us of water at the house.

Time for Plan B. I called Tom and Jeanie to see if I could borrow their industrial chainsaw. Tom was out of town and Jeanie extracted a promise from me that I would not be stupid. That is not how she put it, but she asked me not to attempt the cutting up of the offending trunk alone. Sound advice.

Time for Plan C. A telephone call to Bob Brown, brought him and his son Trevor. They scaled the roof, cut off the top of the tree, surveyed the roof damage, and dropped the rest of the trunk to the ground, where they logged it for us to burn later.

And in this way did the two discreet "things" combine to make a third "thing" that widened our experience, and helped us appreciate even more than we did already, how Providence protects innocents, and is not too timid to couple that protection with a mortality check!

Now we have to see if the panels let water in when it rains, but it won't rain until Thursday or Friday of this week. It could get even more exciting that it already is, but we have the promise of shelter from Jack and Joy Rackham, which is also proof that Providence watches over us in our personal Paradise in the wild place, that we not only breathe into our lungs, hear with our ears, see with our eyes, but also feel deep down in our grateful hearts.

Copyright © 2004 Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED