Who Needs Tom and Jerry? Val Has Hick and The Pony!

You may recall that Hick decided to dig up the bricks in the sidewalk in front of the homestead, move that sidewalk a couple of inches towards the road to straighten it, and put the bricks back down. Yes, Hick was like a cat who suddenly decides it simply MUST be somewhere else IMMEDIATELY, and tears out of the room like a Red-Bull-powered Usain Bolt out of the starting blocks. He has worked on this project for over a week. Every spare moment. In fact, Hick even took Friday off so he could stay home with his bricks.

He sent me a picture Friday evening.

I am not belittling Hick's mad sidewalk skillz. I like my sidewalk. The bricks came from the alley behind my $17,000 house, after the city came by and dug them up to put down a blacktop road. Not an alley like between towering tenements, like in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. An alley like a little-used road that connects one main street with another, with expanses of back yards and side driveways bordering it. Our brick sidewalk is a little piece of history, that of the town, and that of Hick and me. Maybe we need to tell the boys that story.

Anyhoo...is it just me, or does that sidewalk still look not straight? Perhaps it's just perspective. But I'm fairly certain the sidewalk is STILL under the steps. Which is a condition that Hick said he was remedying when I told him I didn't want the sidewalk messed up, because it has been part of our homestead for 20 years. Today Hick drove his tractor (the newest one from the MODoT auction, the one that didn't have steering for the first six months Hick had it without checking the steering fluid) down to the second low water bridge to scoop up some sand. Our sand isn't good enough, it seems. Actually, our low water bridge is known more for big flat rocks. Hick has picked up his share of them, too. Nature is just one big supply central.

You might notice that Hick is not the most conscientious picker-upper. It was evidenced in that previous picture where he was putting in the steps. Tools here. Tools there. Bits and pieces strewn about while waiting to get that sand to dump on the bricks and pound it down in the cracks.

Enter The Pony.

Trash gets picked up Thursday mornings. The Pony's job is to pull that green dumpster to the end of the driveway. On the way home, he brings it back down. Well. If I can persuade him. Usually it takes a couple days to get it back, even though I let him out at the end of the driveway and follow him down. This time he brought it Friday afternoon, but only because I chastised him that he would be gone all day Saturday to his scholar bowl tournament, and I wasn't waiting until Sunday to get my trash back.

The Pony made the turn at the carport to park the dumpster. I pulled into the garage and waited for him to come in to unload T-Hoe of our school accouterments. In he came through the people door.

"You know how in cartoons, you see people step on a rake and hit themselves in the head? Well...I just did that. Only I didn't know it was leaning up against the picket fence, and I was turning the dumpster around, and I stepped back on it with my heel. I hit myself in the back of the head. It kind of hurt."

"What did you do with the rake?"

"I put it back."

"Just like it was?"

"Uh huh. I reset the trap."

I might as well open up a bookmaking service and take odds on whether Hick or The Pony will be the next victim of rake fate.